It was late at night when Y/n got to the tower. She was injured from a mission that went south. Though she’s not an Avenger anymore she still goes and fights. Technically she’s a vigilante Yes, Y/n Stark. 20, is a Vigilante. She goes by “Vega”.
“Come on, it’s gotta be here somewhere” I said as I was looking through Bruce’s drawers in the med bay. Looking for a stitch kit.
“Gotcha” picking it up, and setting it on the table. I went over to the bed, and sat down. Holding my side. Just when the door hissed open.
“Y/n?”
I looked over and Natasha Romanoff was standing there. In a sports bra and sweatpants. Looking like she just woke up. She probably did, it’s past midnight.
“You’re bleeding”
“Some things don’t change i guess.”
“Get on the bed. I’ll help”
“But, I'm not on the team anymore?”
She looked at me with the same eyes she did that night I left. Sadness, and pain.
*the night I left*
“You can’t keep doing this to the team Y/n!!”
Hearing that come out of my dads mouth, and no one stopping him, hurt way worse than what I actually did.
“Oh yea, how bout we stop using me for bait, all the goddamn time?!”
“She has a point Tony” Natahsa (my girlfriend at the time) replied. It caught me off guard.
“You leave me in the middle of a field, with the enemy, and expect me to not get hurt or accidentally reveal something EACH TIME. I'm HUMAN. Last time I checked. I ‘m not a soldier with serum, I don’t have a metal arm, I don’t have widow experience, I can’t shoot webs out of my wrists. I. DON’T. HAVE. SUPER.STRENGTH”
I could see the stress in the room. Peter suddenly became interested in the table, Steve crossed his arms, and Bucky looked guilty. He shouldn't, this isn’t his fault. I’m the most human part of this team and they put me with the bad guys, and let me get hurt constantly, they needed to hear how bad it sounds coming out of anyone's mouth.
*present night*
I saw Nat physically flinch like she’d been punched.
“But I can still care for you, now lie down”
“Bossy”
I whispered. But there was no bite to it. She started pulling my suit up, and my under shirt, I didn’t know how bad it actually looked.
“Fuck”
“I’ve had worse’
“Not comforting’
“I wasn’t trying to be comforting”
“This’ll sting”
“Pfft, I’ve handled worse, I’ve got this”
But right when she damped the cotton ball, I gripped the bed, preparing. I looked down when I noticed her hand inching closer. Till our pinkies touched. I moved my gripped hand from the bed, to her wrist. As soon as the alcohol touched my wound I cursed, letting my head hit the back of the bed with a dull thump.
“I know, I know. It’s okay”
“Do what?”
“Pretned it doesn’t hurt”
“Yeah, well it doe-”
“FUCK ME”
I yelled as she tightened the stitch
“I’m sorry”
“No you’re not”
“I’m not”
I cracked an eye open to glare at her, she smirked and finished the last one. She wiped around the wound and then threw everything away. She stood up, and grabbed a pillow and a blanket.
“Nat-”
“You’re staying here tonight”
“I can go to my apartment”
“With fresh stitches on your side?”
“I sat up but regretted it ,and laid back down
“Okay, fine. You win. I’m staying here tonight”
“Thank you”
“Lift your head up for me”
I did and she slid the pillow under me, draping the blanket around my shoulders next. I sank inside the comfort of the blanket. She brushed my hair back and I looked up at her.
“Get some rest okay?”
“Yeah”
She walked back to the door but I opened my eyes
“Romanoff?”
She turned back around, “yeah?”
“Thanks”
“No problem”
“And don’t tell dad”
“No promises Vega”
She turned the lights out and closed the med bay doors behind her, I sank in the pillow and smiled to myself. Maybe I’m not too much of a burden to be taken care of.
A/N: I really don't know, what this is, it might turn into something, it might not. yes I used my name as our vigilante name. The names I was coming up with were cringy asf. I just needed to write a angsty chapter.
Summary:
It's funny sometimes, when you think about it, how close the two of you were, how naturally she became part of your every day, to how far apart you are now.
You left Natasha because you forgot how to be anyone other than hers.
You still love her. That was never the problem.
Word Count: 10.4k
part 1 / part 2
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The brownstone on the Upper West Side smells like old books and expensive roasted coffee. It's a well-kept home just a block shy of the park, the kind of place where the crown molding has survived since the 1890s and the hardwood floors get special oil twice a year. Natasha applies it herself, by hand, on Sundays she's already blocked off in her calendar.
She's always been good at making things last.
Her work holds up the spaces other people move through—sleek commercial buildings, renovated lofts and apartments, glass-and-steel skyscrapers that cut through the city's skyline. She understands load-bearing walls, tension, compression, how much weight a beam can carry before it gives way, and which joints need redundancy because a single point of failure can bring the whole thing down.
Yet she never noticed the stress fractures forming inside her own home.
The house reflects her in the way a good structure reflects the person who designed it: nothing accidental. The rug in the living room was chosen for how its faded crimson looks against the warm wood floor in the afternoon light. The armchair sits at exactly the right angle to let you read by the window without glare.
Every object in the house has been chosen and placed for a reason. You used to think that was what made a home feel like hers. You understand now that it was also what made it so easy to disappear inside it.
And the part that catches in your throat, every time you turn it over afterward, is that none of it is her fault.
Natasha never asks you to shrink. She never once, in two years, tells you who to be. She loves your wildness and chaos the way someone who has spent their entire life surrounded by order might love the one thing in the room that refuses to stay where it was put.
When she buys you those expensive Belgian canvases for your birthday, wrapped in brown paper with a ribbon she clearly tied herself, crooked and uneven, it isn't a command to produce something worthy of them. It's her saying, I see what you love, and I want you to have the best tools to chase it.
"You didn't have to get the good ones," you say, running your thumb along the tight linen weave of the top canvas.
"I wanted to," Natasha says, watching your face rather than the gift. "You keep talking about wanting to try something bigger. I figured you shouldn't have to fight the materials on top of everything else."
"What if I ruin them?"
"Then you ruin them," she says, like it's obvious, like the idea of you failing at something doesn't change anything for her. "That's what canvases are for."
You believe her when she says it. It takes you the better part of two years to realize you never once stopped to ask whether she meant it.
Maybe you should have.
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You meet Natasha at a rooftop birthday party in July, three drinks in and already ready to leave. Your friends are taking turns giving increasingly terrible toasts. Across the roof, a woman stands apart from the crowd, holding a glass of red wine she clearly isn't drinking.
You walk over before you can talk yourself out of it.
"Okay, I have to ask," you say, coming up beside her at the ledge. "You've been staring at that skyline for ten minutes like it owes you money."
She doesn't turn right away. "Have I?"
"You have. It's kind of intense, actually. Should I be worried for the buildings?"
Then she looks at you, quick and assessing, like she's deciding whether you're worth answering. "I designed that one." She points with her chin at a dark glass tower two blocks south. "They changed the setbacks after I left the firm. It reads top-heavy now. It bothers me every time I look at it."
"So that's why you look personally insulted?"
"No, I look personally insulted because someone brought a ten-dollar bottle of wine to a party with a five-hundred-dollar view, and I've been drinking it out of politeness for forty minutes."
"Now that's a structural failure if I've ever heard one."
She laughs. For a second, she looks genuinely caught off guard by it. Then she says, "Natasha." She puts her hand out like you're closing on a property instead of meeting at a party.
"I don't usually shake hands at parties."
"Then don't. I'll allow an exception if you have a better greeting in mind."
You look at her hand, then take it anyway. "So, what do you do?"
"I'm a structural engineer. You?"
"I'm an artist. I paint, mostly. Badly, if you ask my bank account."
You wait for the look people usually give when you say that, polite and already moving on, filing it away as a hobby. It never comes. She just keeps looking at you, studying you the same way she's been studying the skyline.
"Show me something sometime," she says. "I'm not saying that to be nice. I actually want to see it."
"You say that to everyone you meet at parties?"
"I have never said that to anyone at a party in my entire life," she says, and you believe her.
Four and a half months later, she brings you to the brownstone for the first time.
She skips past the kitchen and the reading nook, walking you straight down the hall to a back room with a stuck door she has to shoulder open. Inside, there is a broken bike, four unlabeled boxes, and a narrow window facing a brick wall.
"North light," she says, arms crossed, watching your face like she's nervous. "It's the most even light you can get. No harsh shadows. Painters like it, apparently."
"Nat."
"I can have it cleared by the weekend. I already called someone about the bike."
"We've been together for three months."
"I'm well aware of the timeline."
"You don't build someone a studio after three months."
"I'm not building anything yet." She glances back at the room. "I'm clearing a room that currently holds a bicycle I don't use and boxes I haven't opened since I moved here. What goes in it after is up to you. You don't have to want anything in it at all."
She looks around the room for a moment before adding, "I finish everything, you know. Every room in this house is finished. I don't know how to leave one alone. I wanted to find out what would happen if I tried."
"And you're testing that out on me."
"I'm testing it out," she says, "because I think you might be better at unfinished than I am."
You don't have a clever answer for that, so you cross the dusty room and kiss her instead, laughing into it. She kisses you back like she's been waiting the whole time for you to stop talking.
You pull back just enough to look at her.
"So you're really doing this?"
"Apparently."
"For me?"
"For you," she says, like there's never been another answer.
You smile. "You're going to regret giving me a room."
"I probably am," she says, smiling, the real smile, the one that changes her whole face.
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Before Natasha, you had a whole identity that belonged only to you, shaped by curiosity, stubbornness, and all the strange little things you loved.
You painted constantly—messy, unfinished canvases stacked three deep against the walls of the Brooklyn apartment you shared with two roommates and a collection of houseplants that never seemed to get watered on time.
You wrote on the backs of scrap paper and receipts, leaving poems and notes half-written because finishing them felt too much like admitting the feeling had already passed.
You went to readings in basements that smelled like candle wax and cheap red wine, and you stayed well past the end, waking up the next morning with ink smudged on the side of your hand and no clear memory of what time you'd gotten home or how.
You had a circle of friends who called at midnight because something that felt urgent in the moment had happened—a stray cat had wandered into someone's kitchen, a guy at a bar was quoting bad movie references at a stranger, the moon looked strange over the Williamsburg Bridge—and you'd go, every time, because that was the deal you'd all made with each other a long time ago: whoever calls, whoever comes.
You spent entire afternoons in thrift stores with no intention of buying anything, digging through racks until you found something strange enough to hold up to your friends and ask, "Who would wear this?"
Money came and went without ever becoming something you were particularly good at keeping track of. You'd spend your last twenty dollars on a book because you wanted it, buy coffee you couldn't really afford because you were already out with friends, and tell yourself you'd figure out the practical parts later. You were late to almost everything, early to nothing, and had four incompatible ideas about what to do with your life without ever feeling much urgency to choose between them.
By any reasonable account, you were a disaster.
But you were also yourself.
No one who met you had to ask who you were. You took up space in a room without apologizing for it. Your opinions were loud and half-formed but entirely your own, formed through arguments with your friends late at night rather than taken from anyone else.
That person existed before Natasha.
That's the part that matters, the part you keep circling back to on the bad nights later, because it changes the whole shape of what happened. You didn't meet her hollow and become full because of her gravity. You met her whole—messy, uncertain, occasionally embarrassing, but whole.
You remember a night about eight months before you met her, one of a hundred nights that all blur together now. Except this one, for some reason, you still remember almost perfectly.
You and three friends had gone to see a terrible experimental theater piece in a basement, something involving inflatable furniture and a soundtrack of low electronic drones and unexplained noises. It had been genuinely bad, and you had all sat in the back laughing so hard one of you had to leave the room.
Afterward, you walked to a bodega, bought the cheapest bottle of wine on the shelf, and drank it out of paper cups on someone's fire escape until two in the morning, arguing about whether the piece had actually been a failure or some kind of secret genius. The argument went nowhere and mattered so much to you anyway.
You remember thinking, sitting on that fire escape with your knees pulled up and the city humming below you, that this was enough. You had your people, your bad wine, your unfinished arguments, your whole messy life stretching out ahead of you. You weren't lonely. On nights like that, you weren't waiting for someone to come along and make your life feel complete. It already was.
"You're wrong, by the way," your friend had said, passing the bottle back to you, still catching his breath from laughing. "It wasn't genius. It was just bad."
"It was bad on purpose," you argued. "That's different. They wanted it that way."
"Nothing with inflatable furniture is on purpose. It's just bad with extra steps."
"I liked it," you said, mostly to disagree, though some part of you had genuinely meant it.
"You like everything," he said. "That's either your best quality or the thing that's eventually going to ruin you."
You'd laughed at that at the time, not thinking much of it. Just something funny a friend said, and nothing more. It's strange how much it sounds like a prophecy now.
What you didn't understand then was how easily all of that could get traded away, not for something worse, but for something narrower. Natasha never asked you to give up fire escapes and bad wine and unfinished arguments.
Somewhere along the way, you just stopped believing that they were worth as much as they used to be.
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Sunday, spring of the first year.
Natasha's calendar has one event on it: floors. She's sitting at the far end of the living room, one leg folded beneath her as she works mineral spirits into the wood in slow, even strokes. You're sitting cross-legged on the drop cloth beside her, holding her other foot in your lap and painting her toenails a green she picked out herself twenty minutes ago and is already regretting.
"That is objectively a terrible color," she says, holding her foot up to the light.
"You picked it."
"Under duress."
"I showed you four bottles, Nat. You pointed at one. That's not duress, that's by choice."
"You were doing the eyebrow thing."
"I don't have an eyebrow thing."
"You have a very specific eyebrow thing you do when you want me to agree to something before I've had a chance to think it through. I'm getting better at resisting it, though. Next time, it won't work."
"Sure it won't." You cap the polish. "Hold still, I'm not done."
"I told the site super I'd call him back in forty minutes. Permit things. It can't wait until Monday."
"Well, then don't tell contractors you'll call them back on a floor day. That's a you problem."
She tries not to laugh. "It is very much a me problem," she admits.
You work in silence for a minute, brush moving in careful lines. When you glance up, she's watching you instead of her foot, her expression softer than usual.
"What?"
"Nothing. I just like this."
"The polish? You were just complaining about it."
"No. Sundays." She gestures vaguely at the floor, the light, the two of you sitting there. "I spend every weekday being the person who has the answer. Clients call, contractors call, someone needs a load calculation by five. This is the only day I get to not be that."
"You could take an actual day off, you know. One that doesn't involve floor restoration or work calls."
"This is my day off. I like doing the floors."
"You like doing the floors the way other people like doing taxes."
"I resent that comparison."
She catches your hand before you move to the next toe and turns it over, tracing the old paint stain on your thumb that never quite scrubs out.
"You always have this on you. Somewhere. I don't think I've ever seen your hands completely clean."
"Occupational hazard."
"I like it," she says, simply. "Everything in this house is clean because I make it clean. You just arrive interesting. I didn't have to do anything to get that."
For once, you don't have anything to say. You lean over and kiss her instead, and she laughs against your mouth.
"I have wet floors and half-painted toes. I have a call—"
"Cancel the call."
"I am not canceling the call."
"Then I'll just have to distract you until you're late for it."
"That," she says, "is extremely unprofessional of you."
She's twelve minutes late for the call.
That night, she makes grilled cheese at the stove in a shirt she stole from you weeks ago. She burns the first one, mutters something under her breath, and starts over. Her competence doesn't seem to extend to cooking.
You eat cross-legged on the floor while she tells you about a client who wanted a load-bearing wall gone "for the vibes."
"I told him, in writing, three times, that the wall is load-bearing. Apparently 'we'd have to redesign half the structure' wasn't clear enough."
"What'd he say?"
"He asked if we could make it feel more open regardless."
"What'd you say?"
"I told him we could make it feel more open, but not by removing a wall that's doing structural work. He asked if there was a compromise."
"And?"
"I told him the compromise was keeping the wall."
"Heroic and hot."
"Structural engineering. Not heroic or hot." She takes another bite. "He kept the wall."
You laugh hard enough to set your sandwich down, and she watches you with that slightly surprised look, like she still isn't quite used to making you laugh just by talking about her day.
"What?" you ask.
"Nothing."
"You're looking at me."
"I like making you laugh."
You look at her for a second.
"Well," you say, picking your sandwich back up, "you're occasionally funny."
"Occasionally?"
"Don't push it."
She smiles. "I'll take it, it's excellent for my ego."
You stay on the floor long after the food is gone, her head in your lap while you run your paint-stained fingers through her hair. She reads aloud from an old engineering textbook, giving every sentence the same grave seriousness, pausing dramatically over words like lateral stability and shear force until you're both laughing too hard to hear the words anymore.
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It doesn't happen all at once, and it certainly doesn't look like the scenes from movies. There are no shattered plates or bowls, no screaming matches that carry down the hallway and through the walls to give your neighbors something to talk about. There isn't a single moment you could point to later and say, There. Right there. That's when I disappeared.
Sometimes, you think, it might have been easier to stop if there had been.
It happens with the bookshelf first. Natasha has an eye for negative space, for things looking intentional even when they aren't. Your paperbacks, bought from damp sidewalk carts or left behind by college friends who moved to other cities, have cracked spines and covers softened with age. They look messy beside her matching hardcovers on structural theory and twentieth-century design history.
So you move yours to the bottom shelf, tucked behind a stack of old project files, telling yourself it's temporary, just until you find a better spot. You never find a better spot.
Eventually, you stop buying physical books at all. You tell yourself you prefer your Kindle anyway, that it's more practical, that paperbacks just create clutter. You do not prefer your Kindle.
It happens at restaurants. You stop ordering what you actually want because it's easier than explaining, again, that you'd rather have a greasy slice of pizza and a can of beer than a dish with foam and reduction in its description. Eventually, you stop thinking of it as a compromise. Her taste becomes yours so gradually you don't even notice the change.
You remember one dinner in particular, early in the second year, at a small place in the West Village. You can't picture the menu clearly anymore, except for one detail: a simple pasta with a glass of house wine near the bottom, the kind of thing you would have ordered without thinking a year earlier.
"What are you thinking?" Natasha asks, scanning her menu with the quick, efficient focus she brings to everything.
"I don't know." You glance at her. "Maybe I'll just get what you're getting."
She looks up, faintly surprised. "You don't have to do that. Get whatever you want."
"No, it's fine. I don't really feel like deciding tonight."
She orders the dish with the foam and the reduction, something involving duck breast and a fruit compote you would never have thought to order for yourself. When the waiter turns to you, you hear yourself order the same thing. The words leave your mouth before you can stop them, and something in your chest goes quiet and flat in a way you don't have a name for yet.
It isn't disappointment, exactly. It's more like watching a door close from the wrong side of it.
The food is good. Genuinely good. You tell yourself that on the walk home, more than once, as if the quality of the meal could somehow explain why you didn't just ask for what you actually wanted.
Your friends notice before you do. Invitations start getting turned down. Plans get postponed. Eventually, people stop asking.
Not because Natasha asked you to choose her. She never does. She'd probably be horrified to learn you thought she wanted this. It takes you months to realize how many calls you've stopped returning, how many invitations you've let pass by, and when you finally do, you don't mourn them right away. You have Natasha. At the time, that feels like enough.
People stop asking, How are you? And when they do ask, it's always, How are you and Nat doing? As if the two of you have quietly become one person. It happens so gradually that by the time you notice, you can't remember the last time anyone asked about you alone.
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The first time you actually recognize what's happening comes on a Tuesday.
A friend from the old crowd texts you about an opening in Bushwick, nothing important, just a small show in a garage, a chance to see people you used to know before your world narrowed down to one address. You want to go.
You look toward the other room, where Natasha is pacing through a call about a permit delay in that focused way she has, and realize you've already decided to stay home. She hasn't said a word. She doesn't even know the invitation exists.
You could go. Nothing is stopping you. And yet you already know, with total certainty, that you won't.
You type back maybe next time before you've even fully registered the words, and something in your stomach drops the second you hit send.
After that Tuesday, you start hearing her voice in your head even when she isn't in the room. Not cruel or commanding, just present, weighing in on decisions she was never actually asked to weigh in on.
Nat wouldn't love that restaurant. Nat would think that's a waste of money. Nat would want to leave by ten.
You start wondering how much of what you like is actually yours anymore, and how much you've picked up from her without ever noticing yourself making the switch.
You mention some version of this to an old friend one night. You don't explain all of it because you don't really know how yet. You just try to describe the feeling, the strange sense that something in your life has shifted without you noticing when it happened.
"I don't know," you say, phone wedged between your shoulder and your ear as you wash dishes in the sink. "Sometimes I feel like I've forgotten what I actually like. Like, if you asked me what my favorite thing is right now, I'd have to think about what Natasha would say first."
"That sounds like early-stage marriage," your friend says, more teasing than anything. "Couples do that. You start finishing each other's sentences, knowing what the other person is going to say."
"Maybe," you say, and let it drop.
You hang up and stand at the sink a little while longer, dishes clean, water still running. You think about the questions you didn't ask, and how strangely difficult they suddenly feel to answer.
You try not to think about the conversation again that night. You tell yourself you were being dramatic, that this is normal. Everyone changes when they build a life with someone. Maybe this is just what happens when two people love each other enough to become familiar, when knowing someone deeply starts to look a little like becoming them.
You let yourself believe that.
That night, you dream of the fire escape, of paper cups and cheap wine and unfinished arguments that stretched long past the point where anyone was trying to prove anything. You dream of laughing with people who knew you before you became part of something else.
You wake up unable to remember the dream clearly, only the feeling it left behind.
Something like grief.
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Somewhere in your memories is the gallery.
You land your first real curation gig: six emerging artists working with found objects and industrial scrap, a tiny loft space on the Lower East Side, a wall you get to light however you want, an opening date, and a small but very real budget.
You come home vibrating with the kind of manic energy that used to keep you up until three in the morning, sketching installation layouts on the backs of whatever paper you could find. The kind that used to have you calling three different people just to tell them, because good news always felt better once someone else knew about it.
Natasha is at the dining table when you walk in, laptop open beside a half-built basswood model, glasses pushed up into her hair, checking structural calculations.
"Nat," you say, dropping your keys with a clatter. "They approved the layout. I get the back wall for the light pieces. It's actually going to happen."
She types two more lines before she looks up, her eyes still half on the screen. "That's great, baby. Give me one second. I have to finish this before I lose my focus, okay?"
"Right. Yeah. Take your time."
You go to the fridge and reach for the sparkling water. You don't even like sparkling water that much. You stand there with the door open, your eyes catching on the little cluster of magnetic clips holding up Polaroids from a trip to the Pacific Northwest, the two of you squinting into the sun on a beach.
Somewhere in that pause, something small cracks in your chest, quiet enough that you almost miss it.
It's not anger. Not really. She's stressed. She's carrying the mortgage of this beautiful house while your income comes in unpredictable bursts. She has every right to need another minute before she can look up and give you the attention you're waiting for.
But you came home with something to hand her, something that felt, for one bright hour on the subway home, like proof that you still existed as someone separate from this place.
And instead of standing there and waiting, instead of sitting down across from her and telling her again until she looked up, you put the excitement away.
When she finally closes the laptop forty minutes later, she finds you on the couch, drops down beside you, and throws her feet up on the coffee table.
"Okay," she says, turning toward you with real attention now. "Tell me. How did it go?"
"Fine."
"Just fine? You said they approved the layout."
"Yeah. It's good. I'm happy about it."
She studies you for a second, something flickering behind her eyes. Not suspicion, more like she's trying to read from a blueprint that doesn't quite match its own dimensions.
"You seem tired," she says finally, and lets it go.
And you let her let it go, because explaining what happened in that forty-minute gap would mean admitting something you don't have words for yet.
Later, you understand what happened here. Nobody took the news from you. You put it down yourself, folded it small enough to fit inside the word fine, and never picked it back up.
After that, the pattern becomes harder to ignore.
You stop going to things almost entirely. Not through any single decision, just an accumulation of Friday nights where staying in feels marginally easier than going out, until it becomes a pattern and the pattern starts to feel like who you are.
You stop painting on any kind of regular schedule. The expensive canvases sit blank in the corner of the back room, untouched for so long that eventually you stop thinking about what you might paint on them at all.
You stop chasing freelance work that doesn't fit neatly around Natasha's schedule, turning down a decent illustration gig because the deadline would mean working late three nights in a row, and you don't want to be the reason dinner is rushed or the two of you barely see each other.
You stop making plans that don't include her.
She never asks you to stay home. If anything, she tells you to go.
Go. I'll be fine. Don't wait around for me. I have three hours of work anyway.
You nod and say you will. More often than not, you don't.
Eventually, staying home starts to feel less like a choice and more like where you're supposed to be.
The back room becomes a room you learn to walk past without looking inside. The easel Natasha built sits exactly where it was placed, untouched. Canvases are stacked against the wall in the order you left them, their price tags still attached. Sometimes you have to go into the room for something else, and when you do, you catch the smell of old paint and gesso. Something in your chest tightens for exactly as long as it takes to turn around and leave.
One time, you actually sit down at the easel with every intention of starting something. You mix a small amount of paint and hold the brush an inch from the blank canvas.
From the other room, Natasha's voice drifts through the house as she talks to someone. You find yourself listening to the rhythm of her voice instead of focusing on the canvas. Twenty minutes pass. Eventually, you put the brush down without making a single stroke and tell yourself you'll try again tomorrow.
You don't.
Being Natasha's person becomes easier than the work of figuring out who you are without her. Once it becomes familiar, you stop noticing how far you've wandered from yourself.
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It's a Thursday, nearly two years in. You come home to find her at the dining table, laptop closed for once, a bottle of wine open and two glasses already poured.
"What's this?"
"I got the contract," she says, the satisfaction in her voice is edged with something softer. Relief, maybe. "The one I've been chasing since March."
"Nat, that's huge."
"It's very huge. It's the biggest thing the firm's had this year, and they gave it to my team." She pushes the second glass toward you. "I wanted to tell someone before I told anyone else. You were the someone."
You sit down across from her. "Tell me everything. Don't skip the boring parts, I want all the boring parts."
She does—the whole pitch, the room full of people she had to convince, the moment near the end when she thought she'd lost it and then pulled the numbers back out, rebuilding her case on a whiteboard with everyone watching. You listen to all of it, asking questions when something catches your attention, and somewhere in the middle of the story she reaches across the table and laces her fingers through yours.
"You would've liked watching me do the whiteboard part," she says. "I was genuinely terrifying."
"I believe you completely."
"You should. I don't say that about myself often."
"I know. That's why I believe you."
She looks at you for a second, like she wants to say something else but hasn't decided whether to. Then she says, "Come here."
"I'm right here."
"Closer."
You go around the table, and she pulls you down into her lap, awkward and a little precarious, both of you laughing when the chair creaks under the sudden weight.
"This is a structural risk," you tell her.
"I'm a structural engineer. I know exactly how much this chair can hold."
"Comforting."
"Extremely comforting," she agrees, and kisses you like there's nowhere else either of you needs to be.
────────────────
Right before the end, you finally try to say some version of it out loud, badly and in pieces, because you still don't know how to explain something you haven't fully understood yourself.
You're sitting on the edge of the bed. You tell her that every time you pick up a brush lately, you feel like a fraud. Your attempts look like a child's scribbles beside the clean lines of her work, and the feelings have gotten bad enough that you've pretty much stopped picking up the brush at all.
Natasha's first instinct is immediate and sincere: she wants to fix it.
"You need better light," she says, sitting up. "Your studio already faces north. Maybe you need something warmer in the afternoons, then. I could look at the wiring. We could add a second lamp—"
"Nat."
"Or if it's the canvases, if they feel too precious or expensive, we could get you a stack of cheap ones. Just to practice on, no pressure. Save the good ones for when you're—"
"Nat," you say again, and something in your voice must land, because she stops.
"What?" she asks.
"I don't need another solution," you say. "I need to figure out who I am without you being responsible for the answer."
She sits back slightly.
You watch her confusion. Not hurt exactly, not yet. More like she's been handed a problem with no numbers in it, and nothing she can calculate her way toward.
Natasha has spent her whole career learning how to find the answer when something isn't working. This is the first time you've handed her something that can't be fixed by finding the right one.
"I don't know what that means," she admits quietly. "I don't know what you want me to do."
"I don't think there's anything to do," you say. "That's the whole problem."
She doesn't sleep well that night. You know because you don't either. You can feel her lying beside you, awake in the dark, as if staying perfectly still might keep her from reaching for a solution to something that can't be solved.
The days that follow are strange and quiet in a new way. Natasha doesn't bring up the back room or the lighting again, but twice you catch her standing in its doorway in the evening, arms crossed, looking at the untouched canvases as though the answer might be hiding somewhere in the room.
She doesn't ask you anything else about it.
For the first time in your relationship, she seems genuinely unsure what the next right move is.
Watching her sit with that uncertainty is its own kind of grief, because you love her competence. You've always loved it. You hate that the thing you're struggling to find your way back to is precisely the thing you can't ask her to fix.
You try to explain it better later that week, talking to her over coffee one morning before she leaves for the office.
"It's not about the room," you say. "Or the canvases, or the light. I need you to understand that. If you rebuilt this place from the ground up around exactly what I said I needed, I don't think it would change anything."
She sets her mug down carefully.
"Then what would change something?"
"I don't know," you admit. "That's the honest answer. I don't know yet. I think I have to go find out somewhere that isn't here."
She doesn't argue with you.
She just nods slowly and finishes her coffee standing at the counter instead of sitting across from you.
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A couple weeks pass in a careful silence. Polite mornings. Quiet evenings. Neither of you brings up the conversation again. You don't know whether that's because Natasha is giving you the space you asked for or because she's afraid that asking the wrong question will make everything worse.
You spend those weeks trying to figure out what you actually meant when you said you needed to find yourself somewhere else.
It finally comes out one day at the kitchen counter.
"I think I need to leave," you say. "Not tonight. I don't even know when yet. But I think I need to go."
Natasha goes very still, one hand flat on the counter. "Did I do something wrong?"
"No."
"Do you still love me?"
"Yes."
"Are you unhappy with me? With—with us, specifically?"
"No, Nat. That's what makes this so hard." Your voice shakes, and you have to stop and breathe before you can keep going. "You haven't done anything wrong. Not one thing. I kept choosing the version of my life that kept me closest to you. Over and over, for two years. Nobody made me do that. I did it because it was easier than figuring out how to be my own person, and now I don't know who I am when you're not next to me."
Natasha's jaw tightens, fighting something down.
"I never wanted to be the center of your entire life," she says quietly, anguish beneath the careful control of it. "I wanted to be part of it. I thought—I thought I was making room for you. The studio, the canvases, all of it. I thought that was me making room."
"You were," you say. "That's the part I need you to understand. You made all the room in the world. I just kept choosing not to use it."
She looks down at her hands.
"So you had all of this," she murmurs. "And you still felt like you were disappearing."
"Yeah."
"I didn't see it."
"No."
Her mouth tightens.
"I can't fix this for you," she says.
"No," you reply. "You can't. And neither can I, if I stay."
She nods once in response.
That is the part that undoes you.
She doesn't try to convince you otherwise. There is no last compromise, no solution she can offer, no argument about how the two of you might make this work. She just looks at you, and you know she understands what you're saying.
Maybe some part of her has understood it for longer than either of you wanted to admit: that loving each other fiercely and completely isn't the same thing as knowing how to stay whole while you do it.
Somehow, that hurts more than if she'd asked you to stay.
"I never wanted to become the thing you revolved around," she says again, quieter now. "I don't know how I let that happen without noticing."
"Neither do I," you say. "That's the scary part. Neither of us noticed."
You stand there together in the kitchen for a long time after that, not touching, not really talking anymore. The refrigerator hums. Neither of you seems to know what you're supposed to do next.
Later that same night, unable to sleep, you sit by the front window and call the one friend who never fully stopped calling, the one who kept texting through all these years even when you kept saying no.
"I'm leaving," you say, before they can even finish saying hello. "Natasha and me, us, we're—I'm leaving."
There's a pause on the line. You can hear them trying to understand what kind of conversation this is, trying to figure out which version of this moment they're being handed. Celebration or grief. They figure out, correctly, that it's neither one.
"Are you okay?" they ask finally.
"I don't know yet," you say honestly. "I think I will be. Eventually. Right now I mostly just feel like I've been holding my breath for two years and I haven't figured out how to exhale."
"Do you need help moving?"
"Maybe, probably not though. I don't really know what I'm taking yet. It's less than you'd think."
"That''s kind of the whole problem, isn't it?" your friend says, gently.
You don't correct them, because they're right, and because it's the first time someone has named what this is without you having to explain it first.
You don't tell Natasha about the call. It isn't a secret, exactly. You'd tell her if she asked. But some part of you wants to keep at least this one conversation entirely your own.
────────────────
You don't leave that week. Or the next.
Several strange weeks pass with you technically broken up and still living in the same rooms, sleeping down the hall from each other in a spare room, passing in the kitchen with a deliberate politeness that feels almost worse than a fight would.
You still know her routines by heart. When she'll want coffee. When she'll want quiet. The way she'll glance at her phone if you've been gone longer than expected, even though she no longer has any reason to ask where you are.
Old habits don't just disappear because you've named the problem.
You still reach for her hand when you're crossing a street before you realize what you're doing and pull back. You still almost say we when you're describing a plan to someone on the phone, the word slipping halfway out before you swallow the rest of the sentence.
More than once, you find yourself thinking about staying. Standing in the doorway of the back room that was supposed to be your studio, you run your hand along the easel Natasha built for you and think, Maybe this is enough. Maybe I'm making too much of this. Maybe I don't have to leave. Maybe I can figure out how to be myself again without giving up everything we've built.
The house pulls at you with all its warmth and history and the particular comfort of everything being exactly where you left it. It takes real effort to remember why staying isn't the answer.
The fact that staying still feels so easy is part of why you know you can't.
One night, about three weeks in, you find Natasha sitting on the living room floor at eleven at night, a box of old photographs open in front of her, going through them alone.
You almost walk past without saying anything.
Instead, you sit down across from her. She slides a photo across the floor without a word—the two of you on a dock in Maine, arms around each other, both laughing at something neither of you can remember now.
"I keep trying to figure out where it started," she says, not looking up. "Structurally, I mean. Where the load first shifted somewhere it shouldn't have."
"I don't think it's one place," you say. "I think it's a hundred small places. That's the whole problem with figuring it out after the fact. There's no single place to point to."
She's quiet for a while. She picks the photograph back up and runs her thumb slowly across it, brushing over your face, then hers. "I keep thinking if I'd noticed sooner—"
"You couldn't have," you say, cutting her off. "I didn't notice either, and I was the one it was happening to."
She nods slowly and puts the photo back in the box. Neither of you says anything else that night, but something in the air between you shifts slightly, less like a fight being avoided and more like the two of you beginning to grieve the same thing.
The house still feels like home even though you both know that you have to leave. This isn't a relationship falling apart because of hatred or betrayal. It's the slow, painful work of dismantling a life that isn't broken. You just stopped knowing how to be yourselves inside it.
You call your grandmother on one of the nights when you can't sleep, sitting in the window of the spare room with the phone pressed to your ear. You don't tell her everything. You tell her you and Natasha are taking a break, which is both true and a significant understatement, and wait for her to ask the obvious question.
"Did she do something?" your grandmother asks, in the careful, protective tone she's used with you since you were small.
"No," you say. "She didn't do anything. That's the whole problem. I did this to myself, and now I'm the one who has to figure out how to get myself back."
There's a long pause on the line, long enough that you think the call might have dropped.
"That sounds harder," she says finally. "The kind of leaving where nobody did anything wrong. At least when someone's a villain, you know who to be angry at."
"Yeah," you say, throat tight. "That's exactly it."
You almost decide to stay again that same night, standing in the kitchen at midnight after Natasha's already gone to bed, looking at the two coffee mugs still sitting side by side in the drying rack.
Standing there in the dark kitchen, you think about how easy it would be to stay. Nobody would even have to know you'd wavered. You could stop thinking about what to take. You could let the whole plan quietly dissolve, the way so many of your own plans had over the last two years.
You stand there long enough that the refrigerator cycles off and the house goes fully silent around you.
Then you think of the gallery news you folded up and put away instead of sharing, of laughing with friends about nothing until the early morning, of the version of yourself that used to exist before any of this, and you go back to bed without deciding anything.
In the morning, you don't mention the call or the kitchen.
Natasha doesn't say anything either.
But when she hands you your coffee, there's a particular gentleness to it that makes you think she heard you get up.
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On a Saturday morning, dust drifts through a long slant of light across the rug. You sit in the worn armchair and look at the single cardboard box on the kitchen counter, a standard Home Depot box with its bottom hastily taped and its corners already peeling. It looks absurd against the rest of Natasha's carefully ordered life, this small, ugly box sitting among the sleek kitchen appliances and the stack of architectural journals.
It's strange, you think, how much of your life fits into this one single box. Two years of a shared home, and everything that's yours alone, everything you chose for yourself, amounts to this.
It should feel like more. It should weigh more than it does.
"You don't have to do this today," Natasha says from the kitchen doorway.
She's wearing an old sweater that used to be yours, one of the first things you ever left at her place, back when your separate homes were boroughs away and a whole lifetime apart. Her arms are crossed tight over her chest.
"We said Saturday," you say. "It's Saturday."
"Time is just a construct." She tries for a small, crooked smile. It falters before it fully forms, disappearing into the silence between you.
Inside the box: some art supplies, three barely-used sketchbooks, a pile of clothes, a bundle of letters from your grandmother, and a ceramic mug with cartoon moose that your college roommate gave you years ago.
"Are you taking the subway?" Natasha asks, breaking the silence.
"Taxi. I'm not dragging this thing through the station."
"I could drive you. Let me."
"No, Nat. I need to do this myself."
She looks at you for a long moment and then nods. She doesn't beg or offer again.
You want, so badly, to cross the room, throw your arms around her neck and tell her you've changed your mind. That the brownstone is big enough for the both of you. That maybe you were wrong. Maybe this can still be fixed.
You don't.
Because you know what you need now. You don't need Natasha to become smaller. You don't need her to love you less. You need to learn how to stand beside her without disappearing.
So you pick up the box. It feels heavier than it should, considering what's actually in it.
"Goodbye, Nat," you say.
"Goodbye," she whispers, and doesn't move from the doorway. You understand that she's not going to walk you down. She's giving you the space to leave on your own.
You walk out, pull the door shut behind you with a soft, final click, and start down the stairs.
Every step feels heavier than the last, the box pressed against your collarbone, the rough cardboard biting into your forearms. When you reach the street, the Manhattan air hits you like a splash of cold water.
The wind off the park is sharp with the smell of decaying leaves and exhaust. Cars streak past, tires hissing on asphalt. For a second, standing there with the box balanced on the low metal fence by the gate, breathing hard, you feel entirely weightless. Not free, exactly. More like the moment after a skydiver jumps, before the wind catches and momentum takes hold, when there's nothing beneath you but air.
You pull out your phone, type in an address in Astoria, and order a car.
Across the river. Away from this street. Away from the life you've just left behind.
A cab pulls up to the curb a few minutes later. The trunk pops open. You slide the box inside and climb into the back seat, sliding across worn leather until your shoulder presses against the far door.
"Heading across the bridge?" he asks, glancing at you in the rearview mirror.
"Astoria," you nod. Your voice sounds strange to your own ears.
The car pulls into traffic. You press your forehead to the glass and watch the orderly residences of the Upper West Side give way to the denser, messier blocks of Queens as you cross the bridge, the river running dark and choppy beneath the steel girders.
You aren't crying.
That's the most confusing part. You thought there'd be some kind of collapse against the seat, tears you couldn't stop, something raw and ugly enough to match what you were feeling. Instead, you feel strangely empty, your chest quiet and still.
Then you remember how you spent the worst of the grief three days ago, sitting on the floor of the spare room with your back against the wall, crying until your eyes felt sanded raw. You cried for the life you'd built with Natasha, for the future you'd thought was yours. Sunday coffee. Quiet evenings side by side. The comfortable certainty of belonging to someone whose brilliance you'd always admired above almost everything else.
Somewhere over the middle of the river, the driver turns the radio up slightly, some late-morning call-in show, voices arguing loudly about things that don't matter, and you're grateful for it—grateful for a sound in the car that isn't your own thoughts circling the same handful of images: the doorway, the sweater that used to be yours, the small crooked smile that didn't quite form.
You watch the water below the bridge, gray and restless, catching the reflection of the early sun on its surface, and you wonder where the distance between one life and the next is supposed to begin.
────────────────
The car drops you at a modest four-story brick walk-up nine blocks from the N train, in a neighborhood that couldn't be more different from Natasha's. The kind of building where the front door sticks unless you pull up while turning the key, and the hallway smells permanently of floor wax and someone's slow-simmering meal, garlic and onion soaked so deep into the walls they might as well be part of the structure by now.
You haul your box up four narrow flights, your arms burning, your palms reddened from gripping the cardboard by the time you reach the top.
Apartment 4C.
You jiggle the key twice until the lock finally gives with a satisfying click, then push the door open into a studio so small that from the threshold you can see almost all of it at once. The porcelain sink in the kitchenette. The single window facing a neighbor's fire escape. A lumpy twin mattress pushed against the far wall next to a radiator that looks like it has personally survived several wars.
There are no blueprints here. No custom drafting table or easel. No espresso machine. No walls painted in sophisticated, muted French gray.
The paint is a slightly yellowed off-white, marked with the ghost outlines of former tenants' picture frames, faint rectangles left behind by years of hanging art. The wooden floors are scuffed and worn along the path from the door to the window from countless other people's footsteps.
You carry the box inside, kick the door shut behind you, and drop it in the middle of the floor with a dull thud.
For a long moment, you just stand there and let yourself take it in.
Everything here is less polished than Natasha's place. Everything is a little broken, or cheap, or ugly, in ways the brownstone never allowed itself to be.
You hate it immediately.
You hate it with the particular kind of hatred that comes from comparing something directly to what you've just lost.
Eight steps from the door to the window. Six from the mattress to the kitchenette. A closet with a door that doesn't fully close, warped from old water damage. A faint brown stain fans out across the ceiling above it. The single overhead light fixture is a bare bulb in a frosted glass dome, the kind of fixture that was probably installed sometime in the Ford administration and never once replaced.
You leave the apartment again, pulling the door shut behind you, unable to stand being inside that small space for another minute.
On the second-floor landing, you pass an older man watering a single sad plant sitting on the stairwell windowsill.
"New tenant?" he asks.
"Just moved in. Fourth floor."
"Radiator's loud," he says, by way of welcome. "You'll get used to it. Everybody does, eventually, or they move."
"Good to know," you say, and continue down the stairs.
When you get back from shopping a couple of hours later, you set your keys on the counter. There's no ceramic tray here, just a clink against cheap laminate. A tiny grease spot marks the surface, left behind by whoever lived here before you.
In Natasha's kitchen, the grease spot wouldn't have lasted five minutes. She would've noticed it immediately, wiped it away on instinct, and gone on with whatever she was doing. There was something almost automatic about the way she kept things in order.
Everything there belonged to a system.
Here, nothing does.
You cross the room to the window and push it open. It sticks, then gives all at once with a screech of old paint, and you lean your forearms on the sill.
Cool air pours in, carrying the sounds of traffic from the street below.
You think about Natasha.
It's late afternoon now, the hour you'd usually be walking through Central Park together, her listing off the names of every tree along the path while you complain about whatever obscure novel you're forcing yourself through. One hand tucked into her coat pocket, the other wrapped around yours, as she tugs you along with her long stride while you half-jog to keep up, laughing.
She isn't here, though. You're here in Queens, and she's still in Manhattan. The distance between this tiny apartment and her brownstone feels less like a few miles and more like an entirely different continent.
You keep reminding yourself that you didn't leave because you stopped loving her. If anything, loving her is what makes it so hard not to grab your coat and call a car straight back across the bridge.
You loved the way she listened when you told her your strangest stories and thoughts, cataloguing every detail like it mattered, like you mattered.
You still do. You probably always will.
Turning from the window, you see the cardboard box still sitting in the middle of the floor. You kneel, pick at the tape with your fingernail, and fold back the flaps.
Inside is the ceramic mug. Your thumb runs over its chipped edge, then across the faded, goofy painted moose on the side. You smile despite yourself, remembering the terrible joke your roommate made when they gave it to you.
At the sink, you wash it with cheap lemon dish soap from the bodega on the corner, a bright yellow bottle with a cartoon duck on the label. Nothing like the imported soap from the gourmet market Natasha frequented near the park.
You fill the mug with tap water and drink.
It tastes like old pipes and municipal treatment. Nothing like the filtered water that used to run from the polished nickel faucet at the brownstone.
You take another sip, then go back to the box and pull out the sketchbooks, one at a time, setting them on the small rickety table that will apparently need to serve as your desk, your dining table, and your studio all at once.
You open the first one. Mostly blank pages stare back at you, a few tentative sketches from years ago near the front, then nothing. All those expensive supplies you've bought and left pristine, too precious to risk ruining, and now this: a book that's supposed to be full and isn't.
No gallery is waiting to see what you make tonight. No Natasha in the next room, ready to admire the work when you're done. No one to impress. No one to disappoint. The absence of all that feels strange.
For two years, there was always someone whose opinion mattered before you put a mark on paper. Now there isn't. You're surprised by how little that frightens you.
You pick up a stray charcoal pencil from the bottom of the box and drag it across the page.
The line is crooked. Uneven. Certainly bad, the kind of line that would have made you flip immediately to a fresh sheet a year ago, embarrassed by its clumsiness.
You look at it for a second. Then you make another line, crossing the first, just as uneven.
Outside, the distant rumble of the train comes and goes between the buildings. Someone laughs loudly somewhere below, the sound carrying up through the old plaster. The radiator ticks and groans beside you as the evening chill settles over the building, and you rub your hands together under the table without getting up, unwilling to break whatever thin thread of focus you've managed to find.
The room is ugly. The mug is chipped. The counter is stained. The sketch, when you finally sit back and look at the whole page an hour later, is bad. Genuinely, unambiguously bad. You can't even make out what you were trying to draw.
You eat dinner by the window, straight out of a paper takeout container. You haven't bought a single plate yet, and the thought of going back to the brownstone tonight to get the kitchenware you left behind feels unbearable.
The food is mediocre and a little too salty, but you finish every bite while watching lights come on in the buildings around you, one by one, strangers settling into their evenings.
You don't unpack anything else. The dresser drawer stays empty. Your grandmother's letters stay bundled together on top of the nightstand rather than inside it. Putting anything away feels like a commitment to permanence you're not quite ready to make, even though you know you already made it weeks ago.
You fall asleep earlier than you expect to, still wearing the clothes you'd worn all day, on top of the comforter rather than under it, and exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with the physical work of carrying one box up four flights of stairs.
You wake sometime after five in the morning to the distant sound of the train, breathing too fast, your heart pounding in your chest. For a moment, you stay still, trying to remember what woke you.
Then your hand does what it's done every night for the last two years without thinking. It reaches sideways across the mattress, searching for the solid, familiar weight of another person.
Your fingers find nothing but cold sheets and, further out, the edge of the mattress, closer than it should be. Then you remember this bed is a twin. There was never any room meant for another body.
You don't move for a long time after that.
You think that this will probably happen again tomorrow night. And the night after that. Maybe for longer than you'd like.
There is no version of leaving that lets you skip this part.
You can't dismantle two years of reaching for someone by just deciding, suddenly, that you're going to.
You get up eventually, because lying there isn't helping, and pad barefoot across the cold floor to the window. The street below is mostly empty, a car passing by every few minutes, headlights briefly sweeping across the buildings before disappearing down the block. The sky is beginning to lighten at the edges, the streets washed in the pale glow of streetlights.
You stand there for a while, arms wrapped around yourself against the draft leaking in around the window frame. You don't cry. You don't call anyone. You don't even reach for your phone. You just stand there and breathe, letting the strangeness of the room settle around you, knowing this is something you're going to have to get used to.
Like the radiator, you think. Get used to it, or move.
You try to go back to bed.
You don't fall asleep again for a while.
Maybe this is the first time you've really done something for yourself in a long time. Not the sketch or the mug. Not even leaving. Just lying in an unfamiliar bed and letting the absence be an absence instead of something you have to solve.
Because this isn't Natasha's life, or your life arranged around hers. It's a small studio with a bad radiator and an okay window. There is nothing here yet that tells you who you're supposed to be.
You think about the fire escape from years ago, the bad wine and the unfinished argument. You understand now why that night stayed whole in your memory when so many others blurred together.
It wasn't the theater and it wasn't the wine. It was the feeling of being entirely yourself in a room full of people who already knew who that was.
The messy circle of friends. The strange little things you used to do because you wanted to. The nights that didn't need to have a purpose. You remember all of it now with a clarity that feels almost unfair.
You still love Natasha. You know that much. But loving her cannot be the only thing that makes you feel like you exist.
A different set of walls doesn't undo two years of practiced disappearing. It doesn't make you someone new just because you crossed a bridge and slept somewhere else.
The radiator ticks beside you. Somewhere outside, a car passes by again, tires whispering over the street. You close your eyes and listen until the room is quiet again.
⤷ pairing: fem!farmer!reader x carpenter!natasha romanoff
synopsis: ❝ She's the handywoman everyone goes to for leaky pipes and infrastructure. You're the city-bred farmer who's not used to the countryside. You never thought you'd actually settle down in such a place, until you saw that fiery red hair and second-guessed yourself. It turns out that Pelican Town's carpenter prefers dainty little dresses after all.. ❞ ✦ 9,923 words.
𖥔 ݁ ˖ tags: 18+ content (mdni!!), a little conflicted smut, softdom!nat, oral (r!receiving), fingering (r!receiving), dirty talk, nipple sucking, slight breast fetish, a little orgasm teasing, aftercare, talking through it, internalised homophobia from reader, use of nicknames (sweetheart/sweet/sweetie, baby, attagirl), feminine reader (christian upbringing), fem reader x fem character, flirting i guess, unhappy marriage, technically nat cheats but she's unhappy sooo, demetrius is a bad husband, x reader perspective, no use of y/n, natasha romanoff has a southern accent, attempts at characterisation made
check out more of your best city girl! (in the works)
Your eyes crack open from a restless, short slumber.
The countryside speeds past your sitting form in the rattling, tinny bus. The greenest of grass blankets a rural landscape, complementing a watercoloured sky. The sunset, a picturesque canvas fallen upon the world, its soft hues blend beautifully into a masterpiece.
The sun almost seems to dissolve into the rich, placid colours of the evening as it dips down past the eye, taking its final bow before the show ends.
You groan quietly in protest of your interrupted peace and rub your temples before looking out of the glass window.
You marvel at the serene sight before your eyes, and your demeanour instantly shifts to a more laid-back, calmer tone. The country has always been the prettiest view you've seen— it never fails to put you at ease. Your attention is peeled to it as you tilt your head and lean closer, obsessed; infatuated almost.
Imposing mountains tower over the vehicles, making you feel slightly smaller than usual. They’re green and rocky near their peaks, soaring to incredible heights. A few birds can be seen scattered around the almost-blue sky, flying with an elegant grace. Their wings flap with a light force, pushing them through the skyline.
The sun stands tall with the peak of day over the scenery, more harshly now with the leaving behind of spring. Trees are littered around the hills, their leaves a light green; the lush hue of an upcoming summer. A subtle breeze wafts into the bus with the slight, angled opening of your window. It hits your face and tousles your long locks, gentle and soothing— like being sung to a lullaby before sleep.
The patterned moquette cushioning is tattered from use—flat and uncomfortable under your weight. It smells like old diesel fumes mixed with a specific, abhorrent dampness that you've tried to block out for the past hour. Clutching your bag tighter, your form stays rigid.
You're not used to this kind of life, where your phone service doesn't work for more than an hour. You always got everything given to you on a silver platter growing up, privileged with a view of tall, bright skyscrapers and the midnight subway route. You never imagined yourself anywhere else.
Following the untimely death of your grandpa, you were his only heir alive. Living a 9-to-5 in a cramped office setting, clacking away at keys and tolerating it only for the check. You'd rather been anywhere else half the time. In his will, he had given to you his vast farm. Which resides in a small, unknown valley.
You said that at any chance you'd get, you would break free from your monotonous office job. When the opportunity arose, you clutched it with shaking hands of glee.
And now? You're travelling to that anywhere else in a dingy bus that just about classes as safe to operate.
Your focus diverts to a gateway sign that's slightly faded at its corners, where the metal gains rust on its poles. It reads: "Welcome to Pelican Town" in big, worn-out letters.
So the "anywhere else" has a name. Pelican Town.
The glee you felt that day at leaving behind a life you once had slowly dims with every second you spend on this bus. Sleep is no feat on this vehicle, with the engine coughing up every ten seconds.
Pressing your forehead to the fogged-up glass and taking a steadying deep breath, you watch as the valley begins to come into view.
The rich greenery dominates your peripheral vision as the bus drives under canopy trees that loom over the passengers. It's an old town, with exhausted fencing neatly laid on each side of the entrance.
Your gaze meanders around the foliage, and just before you can get enough, you're plunged into darkness. A long, winding tunnel is a challenge for the bus to scale, with its maximum speed just scraping 50 miles per hour.
When the light hits you, it's extreme and then not. The bus emerges from the tunnel, slowing to a halt at a run-down bus stop. You stretch and grip the handle of your bag tighter in preparation.
An announcement rings out of the flimsy speaker hung on the ceiling of the cramped vehicle. The voice that comes out of it is scratchy, grating.
"All passengers for Pelican Town, please get off the bus now. Pelican Town, people."
You rise from your chair, legs feeling like jelly after sitting for hours on end. Grabbing your suitcase and bag, you travel down the aisle with immense struggle before stepping off the bus. The doors hiss behind you, and with a loud splutter, off rolls the health hazard.
Dropping your bag on the ground and relaxing your shoulders, you're met with an unfamiliar face. A senior man, wearing a green button-up, brown overalls, and a messenger cap, stands proud in front of you.
"You must be the heir." He gives you a warm, welcoming smile. He has his hand outstretched for you.
"Welcome to Pelican Town. It's a small community here, so you'll fit right in. I'm Lewis." You clasp your hand in his and shake firmly.
"Hey, Lewis," you chirp. "This seems like a lovely little place."
"Sure is. I'm the mayor around here, have been for 20 years now. Come— let me show you to your farm.." He gestures with his head and spins on his heel, expecting you to follow. You hastily pick your bag up and roll your suitcase to catch up to him.
The sound of the wheels clattering against uneven cobblestone echoes between you and him. You have no clue what's waiting for you behind the thick abundance of plants. Anticipation streams through you with every step taken.
It's not a far walk to take from the bus stop, but when you freeze at the entrance, your eyes widen.
Honestly? You expected a lot from your grandpa. Overgrown bushes, wild plants, and absolute clutter were not in the consensus. You don't think you've seen some of these plants before in your life. Gone was the idea of the lavish farm you had been waiting for, then.
Out of the corner of your eye, you see Lewis scratch the back of his neck sheepishly. "It's— not the prettiest sight to look at right now. But it'll keep you busy for the next few days?"
"Yeah," you breathe out. "Busy. Very busy.."
You've watched the sun set and dip past the trees, and the clouds move with the birds as they flap. And you're nowhere near done.
Sweat beads on your forehead as you bend over to yank out yet another weed rooted firmly to the ground. You take a steeling deep breath before you position your forearms.
Your hair sticks to your face, the longer bits tied back into a lazy ponytail. You're in comfier clothes that have gone damp as a result of hard work, and your body starts to welcome a dull ache with open, loving arms.
Your lips purse as you heave with all your might, arms and fingers tense. The ache gets worse with every tug, and you wince at the burning feeling. With a powerful jolt, the weed rips out of the ground, and you don't think you've ever been happier in your life over a plant.
You exhale a breath you hadn't realised you held in and wipe your forehead with the back of your hand. You throw the weed in a massive bucket you've lugged around for the past few hours. Your hand goes up to the surface of your nape, feeling the knotted tension there.
Looking at the plethora of mess you have yet to handle, you groan and bury your face in your hands.
"Your grip is wrong." A southern, feminine drawl sounds out from behind you, and you flinch. You hadn't heard anyone come in. Your body goes tense in alarm.
Your head whirls around to see a red-headed woman grinning at your demise, leaning against a wooden pillar with her arms crossed. Green eyes bore into you, and you looked down to meet an unbuttoned, checkered flannel covering a gray undershirt—with washed-out jeans, a leather belt, and lumberjack boots. Her hair was tied back into a half-updo, her waves spilling out just past her collarbone.
All of a sudden, your body feels.. weird.
A red-hot flush threatens to creep up your neck and expose your feelings. Fluttering beats against your abdomen; your heart rate rises. You don't notice the hitch in your breath or your stubborn, wandering gaze, nor the dry swallow you made to compose yourself. The accent does things you can't understand, a lingering tingle burning under your skin.
You blink and remember where you are, brushing a stray hair away from your face. "Excuse me?" You tilt your head in confusion, meeting the woman's gaze.
"You heard me. Your grip's wrong. Otherwise you'd have done more than that by now." She huffs in amusement, looking at the foliage seeping in. She stands up straight now, figure imposing and a good few inches taller than you.
"And you are...?" Your eyebrow pulls up.
The corner of her lip pulls up. "Natasha. Carpenter. I'm the reason this place even looks half decent."
You still look dazed, staring at Natasha with a bewildered look. A silence blankets your farm, with the ocassional rustle of leaves with the breeze. You make a mental note to check out the town at some point.
You rip through the quiet. "The buildings are all your doing?" You implore, fixing your posture and arching both your eyebrows.
"They're good, right?"
Natasha knocks on the hollow oak, the sound reverberating between you. "Made this one too. She's been standing for God knows how long now.." Her hand flattens against the wood and slides down it before taking paced steps in your direction.
A click of your tongue breaks the moment. "It was nice meeting you, Natasha from the mountains, but I am doing just fine with the weeding, thanks—" You turn your back to her, leaning over to pull the bucket with one hand, it dragging across the dirt.
She lets out a puff of air. "Suit yourself. Can tell you're a city girl."
You halt. "And what's that supposed to mean?"
Natasha tilts her head. "What it means is you have no.. culture. Or experience. Are you even familiar with those concepts?" She condescends with a grin.
You roll your eyes, deadpanning. "That's funny." The red-headed woman watches your form carry the basket with strained arms and dump its contents into a large bin.
All Natasha does is watch you for a second before introducing her southern lilt back to your eardrums. "You met anybody else, or just me?"
"Just you. And Lewis." Your back is no longer to her, now gaping straight at her eyes. She responds with a noncommittal hum, looking back at the sky now. The moon gains volume with the agonising plunge of daytime; its dim, luminescent shape getting clearer. Stars start to pop up in the twilight, scattered around like a canvas on glitter.
"Well." Her folded arms drop to their sides. "Getting dark out now. Gotta hit the hay." Those green eyes stay persistent in their wake, gawking at you openly.
"Yep." You comment, making eye contact with Natasha. Your pupils meet a deep forest, enveloped in a spectrum of green hues. Flecks of yellow float around within the emeralds, adding shine.
"'Night." Her voice goes oddly soft, and the fluttering gets stronger. "Sweet dreams." She prolongs her syllables unintentionally, and it has an effect on you. Her back now faces you, the pattern of the flannel in your vision.
"Goodnight." You murmur, watching Natasha's figure disappear into the darkness. And then she pauses. Turns around again.
"I didn't get your name.." She calls out, and you respond. Natasha repeats your name under her breath, inaudible to you.
"It's pretty."
With that, you hear the shuffling of her receding footsteps. The absence of her presence hangs heavy in the air. You find yourself grateful for the night shadowing your abnormally red face. Wiping your sweaty hands on your trousers, you fumble with the keys to your new house.
A jerking open of the door brings you to the interior of a small, but cozy, cabin. It's got everything you need to live— so you're not complaining. You suck a deep breath in and out before unpacking.
Getting into bed that night was hard. Tucked in under the covers, a certain carpenter comes to mind. Her fiery hair and lumberjack boots floods the canal of your thoughts. Even the thought of her makes you feel that weirdness inside. You don't know what it is. But that's to ponder another day.
Head sinking into the plush pillow, your muscles relax, that chilling ache kicking in. The batting of your eyelashes shut sends you to a whole new existence entirely in the land of slumber.
Maybe this city girl will be alright after all..
Your 6:00am alarm wakes you up and has you rubbing your eyes in protest. You reluctantly get up and get ready for the day.
Coming out in a pink sundress with a cute hairstyle and sitting on the sofa, your fingers scramble for the remote. You grasp it and study the buttons, before clicking the on button.
You're greeted with the sight of a weatherman conducting the screen with a stick. KOZU 5 is stamped at the bottom of the screen as the man drones on.
"—The weather tomorrow will be bright and sunny." After five minutes, you switch the screen off out of sheer boredom. Standing up and slipping your shoes on, you unlock the door and go wandering around the valley.
The town's bigger than you thought: a small plaza with a hospital, a shop called "Pierre's," and a saloon. Houses are dotted around, and you watch the residents run errands. Each house showcases a different story, with different lives. You see kids play around and a sweet old lady watering plants. A fountain sits in the middle of it all, with chiseled designs and thoughtfulness poured into it.
Your feet take you all over the place, and you walk so much that you end up in the mountains. It's quite a beautiful place, with evergreen trees looming. A lake is to your right, the sound of ripples being made and sloshing water hitting your ears. Bird calls fuse into the air as they soar through the air. A gentle summer wind plays with your hair, ruffling the strands. It's peaceful here.
Peaceful wasn't a thing in the city.
In front of you is a house nestled against mountain pines, adorned with sky-blue shingles for a roof. Spirals of smoke twirl up and out of the chimney, dissipating into thin air. Potted ferns perch on the rustic walls, bringing more personality to the house. A spruce sign above the door has a saw etched into it.
Eyebrow raised, you open the door, and a bell jingles softly.
You walk into a rural interior that feels like home. A tattered welcome rug sits at the door, trampled on from use. It smells like freshly cut wood and a hint of herbal medicine. An axe hangs on the back wall, along with framed pictures of smiling people. Directly in front of you lies a small desk with a till and ornamental plants.
And there she is.
Natasha, hunched over that small desk, bored out of her mind. Her ears prick up at the sound of the bell, and she looks up to see you.
"Mornin'." She has a grin on her face, her voice slightly raspy from fatigue. "What brings you here, sweetheart?"
She's wearing a white tank top that leaves little to the imagination, hugging a beautiful body. Jeans hang low on her waist, the chunky brown belt doing nothing to help. Those same thick boots are donned, scuffed with dirt and wood shavings. Her hair is tied back in a loose braid, with stray hairs framing her face.
Sweetheart. A pet name that shouldn't do what it's doing to you right now. Just affectionate. Southerners call everyone sweetheart. Your face heats up, and your lips purse as you try to conceal the rosiness.
"Nothing," you say, chipper in tone. "I was just wandering around. Didn't know you lived here."
"My husband and I. And our kids. Pretty snug place we have here."
"Husband?" Your eyes widen looking Natasha up and down. "You're married? And kids, too?"
Her expression morphs instantly. "Yep. Been married for years now.."
Natasha's tone is slightly off and bland, like the words are forced out of her mouth. Like she doesn't want to live with that fact. The awkward silence that follows is deafening, with both of you maintaining intense eye contact. You swallow dryly, fingers weaving in one another.
Natasha's eyes go elsewhere as the intensity of a past memory hits her all at once. Shouting. A low timbre, and her own voice.
"—That's not how you put the washing machine on."
"I'm sure I would know how to put on my own appliances." She glares at Demetrius. This was their fourth fight just this week, raised voices and heated arguments being the usual in this household now.
The relationship was far from healthy. It tugged at Natasha's nerves seeing her husband's attitude towards her. Even thinking of him as her husband made her body fill with disgust, rage, gnarly feelings that beg to come up and show themselves.
"Yeah? Well, it's fucking wrong.." His voice gradually gets louder, fists clenching under his crossed arms.
Fights like this over stupid, mundane things became a kind of normalcy that didn't sit right in the air. And it always ended the same way, with Demetrius charging down to the lab; Natasha slamming the front door shut behind her. To get a release.
The apologies never came either. It was just a shared look towards one another for an agonising amount of time, and then the two of them were 'okay.' As far as okay actually went.
Natasha's eyes widened with unspoken fury. "At least I actually do the chores around the house. I'm the only one around here who does the laundry, does the cooking, does it all—"
"Okay, calm down. You're getting aggressive."
"Aggressive? You were the one who started this bullshit.."
"Natasha, don't piss me off. It's been a long day." Demetrius grits out with a huff, form rigid against the wall.
"I've had a long day too. You're not the only one." Natasha sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose.
Demetrius took a long moment to stare Natasha in her eyes. "You know what? I just can't deal with you anymore. Stupid fucking things like this.. I mean, seriously?"
"Then go. Go to your lab and hide away like you always do."
The man stormed off, feet thudding hard against the planks as his lab door swings shut behind him. Natasha slides on her leather jacket and her boots, slamming doors as well.
It was either this, or get a divorce and be happy. Find some peace. But Natasha couldn't afford happiness. So she tolerated it.
But at what cost?
She slowly comes back to the present, the spark fading back into her eyes. Her eyes flutter, processing where she is.
"So." You say, cutting the silence with a knife.
"So," Natasha echoes, tongue clicking as she leans in. She's visibly trying to recover from the flashback, piecing herself back together.
"Tell me about the face in front of me. I've said enough about myself."
And all it took were those words to start you off. The air between you changes dramatically.
You talk, and talk, and talk some more— the phrases spilling out of you. You'd trigger yourself, remembering a memory that had to be said that instant and then carry on. At this point, you just ramble on. Your posher, articulate accent shines within the one-sided conversation. It slips out on certain words, which makes Natasha inaudibly chuckle.
Surprisingly, she doesn't seem to mind it one bit. The red-haired woman looks at you with intent and a glint of adoration as the words come tumbling out. And she listens to every single bit. Resting her chin on her fist, her gaze never wavers.
Behind those green eyes—you swear you can see something more simmering beneath the surface. Nothing like when Natasha was mentioning her husband. Not the blankness on her face, nor the cold figure of resentment in her pupils. Rather, a softness not expected from someone who comes off as tough.
You've never been looked at like this, and you don't know how to feel about it. Stared at like your every word is being absorbed into the other person's mind. Like Natasha's trying to understand you, not just listen on mindlessly.
And then her southern dialect seeps back into your heart, stopping you in your tracks.
"Hey— you into Pilates? You seem like the type."
You stiffen. "Pilates?" The incredulous tone is evident in your voice.
"Caroline hosts it on Tuesdays at her house." She cracks her fingers, eyes drifting down to the clacks before meeting your face.
"It's surprisingly good. You should come by." She smirks, looking at your outfit up and down.
"Yeah," you breathe. "I'll.. think about it. Yep. Pilates."
"Good." She hums in contentment, back straightening. "See you on Tuesday then?"
"Mhm. Tuesday." Your hand unconsciously reaches up to your hair out of restlessness. Natasha notices. She stares at your threading fingers that twist away at a strand, and then her eyes snap back up to yours.
The eye contact is different. A good different. You don't feel the urge to scramble away from her blatant stare, or sink in discomfort— nor dwell in a pit of awkwardness. It feels.. okay. Safe. Solace when it shouldn't be.
Amidst the okay and the safe bubbles other emotions: doubt. A grating feeling that doesn't seem to stop chewing at you. A weight on your chest, heavy— immovable.
The bell chiming softly snaps you out of whatever trance you were knee-deep in, and Natasha stands up fully, fingers drumming on the wood.
"Catch you later?" She jerks her head to the side, and before you can answer, she suddenly becomes occupied with a customer. Standing there and feeling out of place for a minute, you start to move.
You step out onto the stone path laid by her doorstep. A breath you hadn't realised you needed to exhale was let out. You swipe the stray hairs away from your face. Instead of moving back to the farm, you walk to the lake.
Lilypads float gently, carrying with them the weight of beautiful, champagne-pink lotus flowers. They drift with the gusts of air. Frogs and their calls are the only audible sounds in such a peaceful place.
It's a spacious chunk of land, surrounded by trees and small flowers blooming here and there. The soft hues blend together to create a divine kaleidoscope. Almost an escape from reality, you think. A comfort spot. You could get used to this view.
You sit down on the edge, watching the water ripple and sway as time passes. You sit on the edge with your thoughts to your left, right by your side.
The grating starts up again, gnawing at your being. It's always been there, even since you were little and didn't understand simple concepts. However, this was different. You understood it, embodied it.
Going to church with your mum and kneeling in front of the cross felt wrong. Like if there was a divine force up there, it could see into the depths of your soul. Prod around at everything you've built up defences around and ridicule you for it. Shame you for the one thing you hadn't told even the four walls of your room.
Reciting the prayers, all you felt was sin. A wolf in sheep's clothing. Disgust in yourself for not dousing it in holy water before it was irreversible. Because holy water would've made it all better, would've made the feelings go away, and the boy with her long, auburn hair.
It felt like a puppeteer pulling the strings of your very being, telling you what to feel, what not. What to say and what to keep quiet.
What to be and what not to be.
Even your whispered wishes to the stars never solved it. It didn't solve the pure hatred you had looking at girls stripping down in the changing rooms. Walking into rooms, the circus of dread started up— its endless mockery and taunts of something that was so distinctly you.
There was never a name for it, but it was branded into your skin as if it belonged there. Followed you around like a spirit, wishing nothing but doom upon you.
But did it ever really belong? You saw, you understood, you know. You know who you are, why you are; what it makes you. So why do those thoughts plague your mind and silently kill you from the inside?
You try to shake it off, intently staring at a certain fish swimming under the water to distract yourself. It didn't do much. But it did enough for you to stop thinking about it.
Now, you just sit there and.. let time pass.
You watch the sun leave you behind and the moon replace it. The light from the sky shines down on the water, creating an ethereal glow. Blanketing the moon is a masterpiece of indigos and charcoals, with stars dotted around.
The beautiful view makes you think.
As much as the moon tries to shine like the sun, it'll never be the sun; or anything like it at all.
Because all the moon does is shadow the sun from everyone at night.
Tuesday rolled around fast enough— and before you know it, you're in Caroline's living room with all the other females. Doing Pilates.
To be honest, you agreed. Even though you'd never done it before.
You roll a spare mat onto the floor and flatten it down before sitting atop it. The dress code— apparently there was a dress code for Pilates now— was "casual." So, naturally, you wore sports attire: a black, form-fitting tank top paired with white sweatpants.
The first pose was the "bird-dog." Whatever that was. You watched Caroline get into position entirely and took a deep breath before attempting it yourself.
It was a shit excuse for a pose. Your form was wonky, your arms not stretched, and if you held it any longer, you'd collapse face flat on the rubber foam. Looking around at everyone else's perfect posture, you winced in embarrassment.
Natasha peers sideways over you and lets out a snort.
"You need some help there, sweetheart?" She condescends with a wicked smile on her face.
The words are practically spat out of your mouth, teeth grinding together. "Help would be nice, actually."
The red-headed woman walks over to you, hips swaying in a dizzying pattern. That same red flannel drapes over her torso, layered with a gray undershirt and brown work trousers. Her eyelashes slightly bat at you as she gets closer, the sound of her steps inaudible.
She stops and kneels beside you. And then you feel her hands on you, scaling your body.
You stiffen with her wandering touch, a rosy pink coming down hard on your cheeks. One of her hands rests on your inner thigh, holding your leg up; the other has your chin tilted up. You can feel the warmth of her skin oozing through the thin layers of your clothes, and the flush only gets worse.
"Just like that," she murmurs. "Keep there."
Burning. A scalding burn blazes under your skin, all over your body in every crevice. It tugs at you, feeling right in all the wrong ways. She's married with children, you tell yourself, the words chanting like a mantra. She wouldn't touch someone else like this knowingly. And especially not another woman. Never another woman, not in a small town like this.
She smells like cedarwood and bergamot. She feels like an autumn morning, unintentionally perfect. You can feel her flyaway hairs against you, courageous red hair pinned down with a hair tie.
And then her hand starts to move. In a comforting gesture, probably. Caressing that spot in the innermost part of your thigh, moving up and down. Up and down. Slow rubs against your sweats that send sparks flying, shooting up into your abdomen and pooling.
It's nothing. It's casual. It feels like everything but casual. Her murmured words do nothing to help the situation, making the fire in you ignite brighter. You suck in a breath, tongue going down to wet your bottom lip— and you find yourself grateful she can't see your face.
"Stay there a little longer," Natasha whispers. "Just for me, sweet.."
Only for her. Your bottom lip trembled with her words, and you find yourself slowly losing your mind. The infectious thoughts claw at the back of your mind— but her touch overpowers any negativity.
Moving her hand from your chin, it slides down your arm, fingers slithering around your bare skin. Her hand stops at your wrist and holds it up properly. You can feel the rough calluses of her fingerpads, the harshness from manual labour holding your otherwise supple skin. Like it was precious, as if you were something fragile.
You feel her fingertips draw circles into your pulse with care. A kind of care nobody's shown you so far. And to make everything all worse, she meets your eyes.
The emeralds she possesses shine with a fierceness that can only be described as a sort of desire. Desire that shouldn't be sought out or pursued. The type that feels unlawful. Her pupils grow with every second spent looking into your eyes, trying to see inside you. To see the you behind the act, exposed and unknown to most.
The thought of being seen as precious goes straight down to your abdomen yet again, a weird warmth boiling. The effect a singular woman has on you is deafening, has you insane and undone.
It shouldn't be that way. It shouldn't cross your mind, yet here it is, a guest at the tourist hotspot of your head.
Caroline's voice snaps you both back into the room. "Great job, everybody! Next pose.."
You watch everybody get up into a new position— the scissors. Looked easy enough. Natasha moves so you can get into the pose. She watches you with a smirk, eyes dancing along your body and lingering on your tight shirt.
You did the right pose, but this time, your back was way off. Maybe on purpose. Your eyes meet Natasha's, and you feign struggle.
"So you just can't do Pilates, then." She huffs in amusement and steps between your legs, crouching slightly. Natasha pushes your left leg towards your face, eyes never leaving you.
"Guess you'll just have to help me. Every single time." You hum back.
Her murmur is almost inaudible. "Wouldn't mind that.." The flush on your cheeks goes hotter, the rosy pink turning into a deeper scarlet.
Natasha's knee is practically between your legs now as she puts that straining pain on you.
"Keep hold." She mutters, and the tension between you is palpable.
A packed silence flickers between you two, and it persists for longer than you'd like. Natasha's stares do nothing to stop the butterflies floating around.
After Pilates that day, you went about your day with another thought to gnaw on.
A redheaded carpenter.
Over the course of the past few weeks have been days of happiness. More happiness than you felt slaving away at that office job. You talked to everyone and made worthwhile friendships. Plus one confusing mess of feelings directed towards a certain red-haired woman.
It got so bad to the point where you intentionally broke parts of your buildings just so you could gape at Natasha cracking down at work, the way her muscles flex and strain holding heavy logs, or when she discards her flannel— showing off that figure you can't seem to look away from.
You're currently at Emily's house, trying on dresses. The whole town was having a party down at the saloon, so naturally, you wanted to dress up nicely.
Sitting at a vanity, the soft feel of makeup-brush bristles glazes over your skin, plastering deep hues of red over your cheeks. Powder dusts over your youthful skin, leaving a shimmering cloud. It flurries into the air before clearing up. You grab the tube of mascara and glide the wand over your eyelashes, making them longer.
With each product, you look more and more kept-together, prettier. A swipe of lipgloss and a smack of your lips, you admire yourself in the lit-up mirror.
You have on a satin, square-necked dress in navy blue, the fabric clinging impossibly to your sides. The hem sits comfortably at mid-thigh length, accentuating your legs. Black stilettos add a few inches to your height, and jewelry is dotted around your skin— around your wrist, your fingers, ears, your neck. Your hair is curled at it's edges, giving it more volume.
You stand and look at yourself one more time, smiling to yourself when a voice rips you out of your daze.
"We're gonna be late— come on..!" It's Emily's bubbly tone that rings out from behind the door.
When you emerge from the room, she gasps in adoration. "Oh, you're beautiful."
"Let's get out of here." You say, the corners of your lips pulled up wide.
The walk to the saloon was no trouble, but tugging the door open, you're introduced to a whole new world.
Polished wooden floorboards stretch across the room, catching the soft glow of lanterns resting on small circular tables. A long-winding, pristine bar dominates the main area, neatly lined with red-cushioned stools that await lively people after a long day of work.
Behind the counter, shelves gleam with a colorful assortment of spirits and glassware, flanked by a vintage jukebox in the corner, ready to spin through songs all night long.
Deep in the heart of the tavern, a brick fireplace cradles a steady warmth, its crackles soft in the otherwise rowdy room. It's situated next to a large, hand-carved wooden bear statue that guards the seating booths.
To the right, a wide archway reveals the lively arcade room. There, a green felt pool table sits beneath the arcade sign, positioned near glowing game cabinets and a vending machine, offering all the drinks and snacks needed for a good time.
Your eyes surface the room, looking around. And then, they stop on Natasha. Dressed in a white, button-up shirt and a rare pair of jeans without dirt marks on them. She made an effort. Their stares remained interlocked, neither of them making a move to look away.
But this time, gone is the usual lightness in her eyes when she peers at you. There's a heaviness there instead. No flirty gaze, no teasing looks. Strictly friendly, whatever that entailed.
Because standing beside Natasha was her husband.
Demetrius— the valley's scientist— dressed casually with his arm looped through Natasha's. His other hand nursed a beer, taking hearty sips from the rim. Her face was different, more uptight and reserved.
The saloon is full of life, the low hum of conversation with clinking glasses and bursts of laughter all hit your ears at once. It smells like cheap beer and leather fused together, with a hint of whiskey. Gus is stationed at the tap, refilling everyone's drinks and catering to the valley.
You join the celebration, glass raising and the sharp burn of gulping down alcohol hits the back of your throat harshly. You saunter over to the pool table, and give in to a game.
You lean over the table, stick in hand as everyone watches on with suspense. Positioning your fingers, the wood slides against your fingers before sending the cue ball across the green slate, hitting the winning pocket. You exclaim in loud, unhinged victory— your arms outstretched. Cheer arises that's just as fierce, aggressive pats to your back as you smirk at your opponent.
"I won," you jeer at them, pointing an accusing finger at them. "I am the best at pool in the whole town—" Your loose giggles fill the space as all eyes are on you.
Every set of eyes. Especially Natasha's.
She's been watching you all night, your drawn frown when you missed a pocket, your expression slowly unbundling with every sip of alcohol. You never got drunk, thankfully. Just.. loosened up. More free.
And Demetrius has been by her side all night, like a hovering parent. Natasha's irritation is evident on her face, so you decide to go rescue her. Surfing the crowd, you finally reach the pair.
"Hey," you say, out of breath. "Having fun?" You probe, looking between husband and wife.
"Yeah." Demetrius cuts in. "We like things like this. Right, Nat?" He shakes their looped arms, looking at the woman with anticipation.
"Mhm," she says noncommittally. "Favourite part of this lifestyle." Natasha's tone is flat, bored. Not containing the usual lilt or playfulness when she's with you.
You cringe and decide to intervene. "Nat, wanna get a drink?" You gesture with your head to two empty stools by the bar, and her expression changes.
"Sure." The light in her eyes is restored, brighter than ever. "Lead the way." Her arm leaves Demetrius' as she follows you down to the counter.
You hop on the stool, Natasha following suit. She beckons Gus to come over with a hand motion. "Two whiskeys." She holds up two fingers and her undivided attention shifts to you now.
"This is nice." You suddenly declare. "The celebrations, the community.."
"The city isn't like this?" Natasha probes, the question in her eyes. You shake your head in response.
"Nope. It's— actually kinda nice here."
Two glasses of bourbon hit the counter in front of you two, and Gus gives you a nod before tending to other people. She takes the glass closest to her with tentative hands, raising it in a silent gesture. You do the same, the rims clinking together.
"Cheers." Natasha tips her head back, and the liquid goes smoothly down her throat. You drink half of it, setting your glass down on the wood.
"Sometimes it gets too much around here." Your eyes dart to the face behind the accent. "But I wouldn't change it for the world. Not a single thing."
A quiet overcomes you for a short moment, before your lips open.
"I used to work in an office." Natasha lets out an abrupt laugh at your words, shoulders shaking.
"No way," she gasps incredulously. "You? In an office? I don't see that, sweetheart."
"Yep." You click your tongue. "A miserable 9-to-5 in a shitty cubicle for a workspace. I only did it for the money."
Natasha grimaces with a smile. "Sounds horrible." She swirls the contents of her glass idly, the whiskey sloshing around. The taller woman still tries to wear her chuckles off, but fails.
"But when I came here, I felt better. Like I wanted to be here." Your eyes meet again, and there's something more there. The ghost of realisation. A look of admiration your way.
You know exactly why you want to stay here, the answer rooted in your head. She's looking right back at you.
You clear your throat and stand up, changing the subject. "Let's dance."
Natasha blinks. "You want to dance. With me."
"Come on, don't tell me you're horrible at it—" At your teasing words, Natasha immediately leaves the stool, standing over you.
"Horrible my ass." She mumbles with a smirk before walking to the dance floor, expecting you to follow. Your heels clack against reinforced planks until they reach the area where the jukebox is.
A small crowd forms, and you fit right in with Natasha. Your bodies move like fluid, swaying with the tempo of the music. It's some brassy cornet solo with a deep, male timbre singing along to the melody.
You feel Natasha's body brush against yours now and then, and jolts charge through your body like electricity. Both of you get lost in the moment, giggling and carefree at each other's dancing moves.
And then the song gets slower, more intimate. You feel Natasha's frame against your back, her soft body moving against yours. Any watchers would brush it off as friendly— it was everything but friendly. Tingles spread across you the longer she was there, her presence making you lightheaded.
"You wanna leave to go somewhere quieter?" Natasha murmurs against your ear, her breath tickling your skin.
"Quiet sounds nice," You hum. "Why not?"
When her hand embraces yours, a warmth fills you from head to toe. She leads you through the people, and pushes the door open with her elbow.
The cold wind of eleven at night hits your face and you flinch like you've been slapped. But the feeling is momentary as you gape at the lit-up town. Old lampposts cast long, shaky shadows against the cobblestone. Windows filter in a golden light, illuminating like scattered jewels. Idle smoke from chimneys swirls up in the air, creating pretty paths before disappearing without a trace.
You shiver involuntarily, your body overcoming you in spasms. Natasha notices; of course she'd notice.
Slipping off her leather jacket, she drapes it around your shoulders, coating you in her warmth. You sigh in relief, wrapping the material tighter around you. Her jacket still smells like freshly cut wood— a scent you've secretly come to love. You subtly inhale her odor, feeling the warmth crawl everywhere and the fluttering kickstarting.
Natasha takes a moment to just stare into your eyes and come to terms with herself. She looks down at your intertwined hands and squeezes gently, calling your name out.
"Look at me." She jerks your chin to face her. Your short-lived bewilderment morphs into a sweet smile.
"What is it, Nat—?"
Before you can even react, you feel lips holding yours captive. Your eyes widen and you stand frozen in shock, watching the centerpiece of every dream you've had kiss you with such an intensity it makes you dizzy.
And then you kiss back just as hard.
Pent-up feelings and unspoken tension thrive in the small space between you as she ushers you to the worn wall of the saloon. Your back hits the bricks as you try to keep up with Natasha, tongues moving like synchronised swimmers. The weight of a million words is dumped on the tip of your tongue. I like this. I like you.
Keep going and don't stop.
But your prayers are disregarded as the sound of rowdy voices from the saloon makes Natasha pull away from you like touching a hot stove. She puts a few feet of distance between you, and you're left dazed, hurt. Confused.
Your lips part and she speaks before you can. "Not here." Natasha shifts her weight from one foot to the other. "It's too risky and if someone had walked through that door—" She almost looked mad at herself for letting it get this far.
"My cabin," you mutter, interrupting the taller woman's spiraling. "Nobody’s gonna come there, Nat. We'll have all the privacy we need."
Natasha grabs your wrist and the two of you dart. Two women, tangled in a complicated mess, picking themselves rather than any possible variable. Two women, one stumbling over her heels, the other tugging her by the arm. Their footsteps echo in the quiet of midnight, thuds against dirt and stone loud.
She runs with purpose, moving like the world's going to end if she doesn't get more of your taste. Natasha knows the way to your farm off by heart now— could even get there blindfolded if she had to. Her flannel swishes with the breeze as you try to catch up with Natasha, hair blowing violently.
As soon as your cabin door slams shuts behind you, lips are on yours. Desperate. Needy. Natasha's soft, pillowy lips touch yours and for a second, your breath hitches and you forget how to function.
"Nat—" you gasp.
"Shh. I need this. Need this so bad.." She murmurs and doesn't give you time to respond before she's back to heated kissing, hand coming up to cradle your head. You moan in her mouth and lean in, giving as much passion back.
The two of you kiss like there's no tomorrow. Kissing like you'll run out of time before it's too late. Her fingers map you everywhere, callused hands hard at work memorising your feel. Squeezing your hips, she lets you breathe before descending on your neck.
"Been thinking 'bout you. All the damn time."
Messy, sloppy kisses on your jawline, the column of your neck, your collarbone. Your head lolls back against the oak as she takes your skin for herself. Piercing bites make you whine out in pleasure, sure to leave their mark for the coming hours. Your fingers, out of instinct, run up to her hair, weaving through the auburn strands.
They're not short and cropped like the other people you've kissed. Her hair is long and gorgeous, the last glint of sunlight before cold days. Your hand almost fits perfectly, as if it were meant to be there.
Not a rougher, masculine hand. But a feminine, softer one. Running through feminine hair.
You feel her fingers crawl up your dress and you forget how to breathe. Hand slipping past the waistband of your underwear, her fingertips tease you; and you let out an embarrassing whimper.
"Look at that," she smirks. "Already? 'Haven't even started, sweetie."
Natasha's fingers tease your slit, rubbing up and down, making your back arch off the door. A press to your clit has you gasp, grinding up into her hand.
"I like it when you wear the sundresses. They're cute little things. Think about taking them off you now and then."
Your whine in response makes the red-head chuckle. "What, you like the idea of me going fucking insane over your dainty little clothes?" That southern lilt does absolutely nothing for you, making your face even redder.
Who knew that kisses to your neck and teases to your clit were your ultimate demise? And then, her fingers plunge into you before you can react— stopping the teasing. You gasp, eyes rolling back in a moan.
"Oh, oh gosh, Nat.."
Your hands claw at the wood, making crescent-shaped indents. Natasha will fix that later. You knew her hands were divine, but her fingers inside of you? That was a whole new level of pleasure. Feeling her rough hand move in and out of you with her mouth all over you— This was bliss. Pure, unfiltered bliss she's giving you.
"You're tight, sweetie." Natasha drawls with a smirk. Her biceps flex as she does your pussy, the muscle straining slightly. Both of you are covered in a sheen of sweat, the air smelling like forbidden acts.
"Squeezing my fingers so well, hmmh?" You press your lips together in an attempt to compose yourself, even when her words unravel you with each syllable.
"Mhm," you whine, practically trying to merge your pussy with her hand. Even words were a feat, being fingered in all the right ways.
Somewhere tangled up in the arousal, another finger joined in. The wet sound that reverberates around the room is obscene, dirty almost. Natasha's fingers work you like a dream, hitting the sweet spots whilst knuckles-deep inside you.
"Was thinking about my jacket on you all night, sweetie."
That mouth? Those lips worshipped you like no other. You were a shrine and she was an eager devotee, hypnotized by the sheer sight of your body. And Natasha just can't seem to get enough.
You don't think you've ever been so needy in your life.
Your body tenses as she touches that beautiful, beautiful spongy layer inside of you, hitting the jackpot with those sweet spots.
"Wanna— wanna come.." You say desperately, feeling your vision start to claw white at the edges.
"Mmm-mm," she tsks. "Not wasting your orgasm on my fingers, baby." You feel her curl inside you and let out a high-pitched groan.
Panting heavily, you look at her and swallow. "Nat, we can't— You're married. You have children."
Her assault on your neck stops, and she's frozen for a few seconds. You whine with urgency when her fingers leave you, the air shifting.
As her hands comes up to cup your face, Natasha's thumbs graze your cheeks. In the jade crystals of her eyes, that same unspokenness clings on. Those same conflicting feelings you've had to carry the burden of for as long as you can remember.
"Just.. let me have this," she whispers, forehead touching yours. "Let us have this." She pulls away slightly, her hand coming to entwine yours. She squeezes gently, eyes never leaving yours.
"Your bedroom?" She raises an eyebrow.
"To the left. Down the hall, at the end.." you breathe, and all of a sudden, a hand tugs you around your own space. Your heels and her boots thud together as Natasha basically drags you to your room.
When the door shuts behind the two of you, you see pale fingers slide up the spruce to twist the lock. Green eyes befall you again, and plush lips envelope yours. This time, you're backed up to the foot of the bed. Natasha's hands grab your waist and push you, sitting you down.
"This is wrong," you gasp for air, voice cracking. "So fucking wrong.."
"Then let's be wrong together." Natasha declares, a rasp in her tone. "I'd always be wrong that way."
You can hear the displeased audience in your head jeer at your actions, the numbing feeling getting worse. Your body drowns in doubt, in self-consciousness. You shove it back down, focusing on the alluring woman in front of you.
Tilting your chin up, she starts at your jaw this time, kissing down to the square neck of your dress. Littering marks, she makes sure to be careful, sucking on easily hidden spaces.
And then, Natasha pauses. "You okay, sweetheart? Too much?"
"Not enough." You grit out, and that was all the confirmation she needed.
As she goes down on your body, Natasha slowly goes into a kneeling position. Peppered kisses are everywhere all at once. The redhead pauses at the valley of your breasts, letting out a guttural moan. A hand comes up to cup one of them, groping the flesh.
"Oh, god.. You're so—" Her thumb comes up to your nipple. Squeezing it gently and stroking the nub, you whine, leaning your head forward.
"These are so fucking perfect, baby. You don't even know." Her fingers alternate between massaging the skin and teasing your hardening nipples. When her hot mouth grazes you, that's when you whimper loudly.
Knees buckling, you watch her work with such precision, pushing to see what your weaknesses are, what makes you groan louder.
"I have to stop myself from staring at them, you know." Her eyes are ravenous as she licks eagerly. "When I'm alone, I get off to them like a needy bitch." She spits the words out like they're poison. A groan joins the heated air between you as she feels you up.
"I love these. Fucking hell.." She bites her lip as she takes a moment to look at your breasts. Her tongue swipes over her lips before reluctantly moving on, kissing a trail down you.
Finally, on her knees, her hands crawl up your legs, her touch provoking tingles. They stop at the hem of your dress— and Natasha looks up at you for confirmation.
"Can I..?" She looks at you with pleading eyes, hands rubbing up and down your thighs, planting a peck on your inner thigh.
"Yeah," you nod eagerly. "Please—"
But before she continues, her hands move down to your heels, unclasping the buckle gently and peeling off each of your stilettos before discarding them carelessly. A small, caring act amongst the shared desire.
A shit-eating grin bestows upon Natasha's mouth, and the navy edge rides up until your lower half is exposed to her. Her fingers hook in your underwear and slip them off, joining the disoriented shoes.
She pats your thigh. "Lift your legs up onto my shoulders." You obey, and the weight of your flesh goes onto Natasha.
"Attagirl." The murmur from her is all you hear before she dives in between your legs, and a satisfied moan leaves you. Fingers draw back to her head like a magnet, combing Natasha's hair.
"Tell me if it gets too bad, baby."
Her hands come to grab as much of your thighs as she can muster, and her tongue works miracles on you— turning you into a whiny, whimpering mess. This is nothing like her fingers. This is better. The hairs on your skin stand up; a mountain of pleasure building in your abdomen.
Your eyes look up, and you wish they had never looked up.
The cross your mother insisted you have mounted somewhere in your cabin, so you just threw it up on one of your bedroom walls and left it there. And suddenly the blush drains from your face, leaving an uncomfortable, pasty white hue.
The nausea arrives in savage waves, not giving you time to process anything.
The woman you've been thinking about every waking second for the past weeks is finally right where you dreamt she'd be— yet, you're so.. odd. Out of place. Like this shouldn't go the way that it is.
You can feel the frowns and glares of everyone back home. All their faces hovering above you, whispering the words of God into your ears. No child of sin is a child of Jesus Christ.
It doesn't feel like a sin. It feels majestic, feels right in every sense possible. It shouldn't be that way.
Her tongue feels heavenly on you. But every second that you stare at the cross watching over your every move, the bile threatens to rise up your throat.
You're going against everything you were taught. Everything that shows the warning signs of sin. Sin. You need to repent, you have to cure yourself as soon as possible, cure yourself before it spreads too much—
But what if nothing's the cure? What if she's the cure? Her flames for hair, her low waisted jeans, his her lumberjack boots jammed with dirt and wood shavings.
Natasha's voice, low and soft, snaps you out of it. "You okay, sweetheart? Want me to keep going—?"
"Yes." you say impulsively. "Just.. carry on. Please."
Her hand pats your thigh as she goes back to giving you just what you need. Natasha starts a steady deep rhythm. She smiles and smirks at your reactions. You cry out and grab her hair behind you, pushing her face deeper into you.
"You're doing so well, baby—" Her words vibrate against you and all that comes out of your mouth are needy noises. "So good.."
You feel Natasha moan in you, switching between sucking your clit and reaching her tongue into unexplored places.
"Nat.. Nat, oh— please.. Please." You're thrusting in her face now, not caring how needy you look. You throw your head back, forcing your gaze to leave the cross as you go against it.
Your skin burns. Not from the thoughts or the doubt. From love.
The obscene, slick sound of Natasha's mouth and the slight squeak of the bed, your moans, her heavy breathing— they all echo off the walls as you live your recurring dreams.
"You're close. Can feel you." Her nose hits your pelvic bone with every grind up into her tongue, and your toes curl at Natasha's occasional groan. Her pace is relentless on your folds, not stopping, not going any slower.
Your limbs begin to fail you, and the punishing rhythm she set breaks as you begin to mindlessly babble. At this point, you're riding her mouth, and Natasha doesn't seem to complain; quite the opposite.
"Ah.. God, it's— it's so good. So good, so.." You mewl, your body starting to slump slightly at her pace. Your thighs clench together around her head as you beg for release.
"Just look at the state of you, sweetie," she teases in a certain tone. That tone. "You wanna come on my mouth?"
You moan loudly at her words, legs trembling, and your grip on her hair getting tighter. You tug your head impossibly closer to you, trying to merge your bodies.
"Mhm," you cry. "Let me.. let me come." The spring in your stomach gets tighter and tighter, as your eyes roll back in never-ending arousal.
And then Natasha's tongue goes deeper than ever before. Hot-white floods your vision, your jaw going slack. A scream rips out of your throat as you basically choke the redhead with your thighs, cupping her head and grinding erratically. You squirt on her mouth, coating her lips and tongue with slick— which she takes with no problem.
She fucks you with her tongue through it, until you come down from the release. Fatigue strikes your body in the form of pants and trembles, chest heaving irregularly.
Natasha wipes the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand as she rises from the floor to kiss you intensely, her mouth tasting like a hint of salt.
"Taste yourself on me," she coos. "That's all you, sweetheart." Her tone is noticeably softer as she pulls away, cupping your face.
"You did so good for me, hmm?" You nod obediently, thighs still trembling. Natasha frowns, looking down at your shaking figure. She sits down by you, the mattress sinking with your shared weight.
And then, arms wrap around you, lifting you up into her lap. Her face comes to press against your hair, and you feel all of her against your back. You're now skin to skin, sweat clinging together.
"You hurting anywhere?" She murmurs, muffled by you.
You shake your head. "Nope," you chirp. "I'm fine." You melt back into her torso, letting yourself go limp in her embrace.
Natasha sees the cross on the wall, and her face hardens. She intentionally shields your gaze from it— hiding your face in her chest. Her hand rests on your arm, stroking gentle circles on the smooth flesh.
The silence between you two is comfortable, welcoming. Not overbearing or awkward. The smell of sex and sweat floating around the room makes you cringe internally, wincing. Natasha presses a kiss to your temple now and then, humming against your skin.
Your mind begins to wander. Wander back to the divine force watching over you. But this time, the nausea doesn't reach your throat. And the voices don't linger. The gorgeous woman holding you is almost a shield against the inner turmoil within you.
It makes you realise something.
You couldn't care. You don't care anymore.
This is you. You in all your glory. You're not the mocking audience in your head, the conservative girl all those years ago, not the person you wished on every star to become. A relieved feeling washes over you as you relax more in Natasha's strong grip.
So they can all watch from wherever they are as this city girl finally finds herself. Whether it's from up above or down on Earth.
Let them watch.
𖥔 ݁ ˖ a/n: and we're done ugh but i wanna thank my lesbian friend for helping me with the internalised homophobia parts (she 110% won't ever see this but the thanks will be there anyway!!) also i am SO sorry for not posting in ages, life is kinda biting me in the ass unfortunately.. but trust more fics will be coming haha
Warnings: 18+! MINORS DNI! Age gap (N=34, r=23), Violence, trauma, blood, characters death.
Word count: 13,9k
A/N: well. I love this chapter.
Part 4
The photograph seemed to grow heavier the longer you held it.
It made no sense. It was nothing more than a thin wooden frame, a rectangle of glass protecting an old photograph that had apparently been sitting on Natasha’s shelf for years. It had existed quietly in this room long before you ever stepped inside it, changing nothing..except now it had changed everything.
Your fingers had gone cold around the edges as you stared at the three people beneath the gray sky. Your mother stood beside your father, both dressed in tactical gear. He wore the faint smile you recognized from the few photographs you still had of him, while your mother looked exhausted and irritated in a way that was painfully familiar. And beside them stood Natasha.
“What is this?” Your voice came out quieter than you intended and Natasha’s eyes moved from the photograph to your face. “Y/n-”
“No.” You stood abruptly, startling Liho awake on the bed and you held the photograph toward Natasha. “What is this?”
She didn’t answer. The silence lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough for something inside you to begin splintering. There were only so many reasons Natasha could look terrified by an old photograph. “Tell me.”
Natasha swallowed and you saw her fingers tighten around the towel before she seemed to remember she was holding it and dropped it onto the nearby chair. “Y/n..I can explain.”
The word made your stomach twist. “Explain what?”
She took half a step toward you and you moved backward without thinking and Natasha stopped immediately. It was a tiny movement, but you saw what it did to her. You had never stepped away from her before. Not during training, not when she shouted at you outside the arena, not when she caught you breaking down in the club bathroom, not even the first time she touched your waist in this very room. Now you looked at her as if she might burn you.
“Were you there?” Her expression changed. “Were you there that day?“ and she said nothing.
Memories rushed forward, the briefing room, your tears, Natasha telling you stories about your mother stealing coffee and your father showing everyone your photograph. You remembered asking her directly if she knew what happened to them. No. I wasn’t on their final operation. I heard about it afterward.
You had believed her..no, worse, you had thanked her. “You told me you weren’t there.”
Natasha closed her eyes briefly and that was enough for you, “You were..“
“Y/n..please let me explain.”
“Were you there?!“ Your voice rose hard enough that Liho darted beneath the bed.
“Answer me!”
“Yes.”
The word tore through the room and for a moment, your body seemed unable to process it. Your lungs stopped working properly and your fingers loosened around the frame before gripping it again. Natasha’s voice was lower when she repeated it. “Yes..”
Your eyes filled before you could stop them. “No..”
“Y/n.”
“You looked me in the face and lied..”
“I know.”
“You sat there while I cried..”
The rest caught painfully in your throat and she had listened while you admitted how little you remembered about your parents. She had watched you fall apart because nobody had ever given you memories of them that felt real and all the while she had known exactly who they were. “You knew.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
Natasha’s jaw tightened and a bitter laugh escaped you. “No. Wait. How long have you known who I was?”
Her silence answered first. “Before I came here?”
“Yes.”
“Since day one?”
“Yes..”
Every moment between you seemed to rearrange itself. The way Natasha had stared at you when you first arrived. Her impossible standards, the anger whenever you took risks, the strange attention she gave you when she thought you weren’t looking. The arena. Her apology. The stories about your parents and the messages, the club, her room, her bed. Every kiss..every moment you had believed Natasha saw you more clearly than anyone else.
“You knew who my parents were before you ever met me. You knew what happened to them and you knew I was looking for answers?”
“Yes.”
The tears escaped and you wiped them away angrily. “So what the fuck was I to you?”
Natasha’s head lifted. “Don’t..”
“What? A mission? A responsibility? Some dead parents daughter you had to keep alive because you couldn’t save them?”
The words struck visibly and Natasha went pale. And suddenly you understood. “Oh my God.”
“No.”
“You felt guilty.”
“That isn’t what this was.”
“In the beginning?”
Natasha hesitated..which was a wrong answer. Your face changed and she saw it immediately. “I was afraid because of what happened to them!” she said quickly. “When you arrived, I saw them in you. I won’t lie about that, but I stopped, y/n, I stopped.. After the arena, I understood you weren’t them. Everything between us after that-”
“Don’t use us to make this better.”
“I’m not.”
“You lied to me about my parents, Natasha. And then you slept with me.” Pain crossed her face, because the words sounded even worse once they existed outside your head.
“You let me trust you. You let me tell you things I haven’t told anyone. You let me believe you were the one person here who wasn’t deciding what I could or couldn’t handle and all this time you were doing exactly what everyone else did.”
“I know.”
“STOP saying that!!” Your scream cracked across the room and Natasha went completely still. “You don’t get to keep saying you know like that fixes anything!!”
“I’m not trying to fix it.”
“Then tell me the truth!”
“I’m trying..”
“No, you’re not! You’re standing there deciding which version of it I’m allowed to hear!”
Something in Natasha’s expression shifted. You recognized the look from training: the moment she realized there was no clean way out of a situation. “What happened to them?”
“Y/n-”
“I have spent my entire life asking that question. What happened?”
Natasha’s mouth tightened. “The details are still classified.”
For a moment, neither of you moved. Then anger rushed through you so violently it almost drowned everything else. “Classified?”
“That isn’t what I-”
“You fucked me in this room, Natasha!!!” Your voice broke into a shout. “You let me sleep in your bed. You know how I breathe when I’m scared, when my shoulder hurts, how I take my coffee, what side I sleep on, what I look like when I wake up and somehow my parents are still fucking classified?!” Natasha flinched.
“I am asking what happened to my mother and father. I was six years old! SIX!”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Then tell me!”
“I CAN'T!” The answer tore out of her and Natasha looked horrified by her own volume.
“Can’t?”
She dragged a hand over her face. “I was given an order, Y/n..”
“Fury.” Natasha said nothing. “Fury told you not to tell me.”
“Yes.”
“And you listened.”
Natasha moved instinctively, but you threw up a hand. “Don’t.” Natasha lowered her hands and you tried to breathe. “Were they alone?”
“No.”
“Were they scared?” Her hesitation was enough. “Natasha.”
“Yes.”
Your eyes closed. “Did they know they were going to die?”
A tear slipped down Natasha’s cheek. “Yes..”
Your knees weakened and you caught yourself against the desk. “They stayed so the rest of us could get out.” Natasha said softly. “Your father was helping an injured agent. Your mother was already badly hurt. The structure was failing..”
“And you left them.” There was no accusation in the words and that somehow hurt Natasha more. “Yes.”
You looked at her properly then and something finally made sense. Her rage when you ignored evacuation orders. Her fear whenever you disappeared from communications. The arena. The way she had screamed at you that you couldn’t save everyone. She had not only been afraid of losing you, she had been reliving what happened to them. “You were ordered to leave.”
“Yes.”
“Did they say anything?”
Natasha froze and your pulse became deafening.
“They did, didn’t they?” Her eyes closed and for a moment she seemed somewhere else, surrounded by smoke, static and collapsing concrete. “Your mother tried to leave you a message.”
“What message?” Natasha swallowed. “She said, Tell my daughter..”
You waited. “And?”
“That was all I heard. The transmission cut.”
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What was she going to say?”
“I don’t know.”
“You knew her.”
“Yes.”
“Then guess.”
“I can’t.”
“What was she going to say?”
“I don’t know!” Natasha’s voice finally cracked. “I have spent seventeen years wondering!” Tears were falling freely now and for once Natasha didn’t seem aware of them. “I’ve imagined every version! That she loved you. That she was sorry. That she wanted you to know they didn’t leave because they wanted to. That she wanted you to live differently than they did. I don’t know, Y/n. I never heard the rest.”
A sob broke through you and Natasha almost moved closer again, but when you stepped backward, she stopped. “You knew she was thinking about me.”
“Yes..”
“All these years.”
“Yes..”
“And you never told me.”
“I should have.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you?”
For the first time, Natasha answered without hiding behind Fury or classification. “I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“You.” You stared at her.
“Of what knowing would do to you. Of what you would do with it. Of what I would see every time you looked at me afterward.” Her voice lowered. “And then I got selfish. I kept telling myself I would tell you later..after training, after selection, when you were ready, when I could explain everything. There was always another reason to wait.”
“And then?” Natasha looked at you. “And then..i- I think I fell in love with you.”
Everything stopped and neither of you had ever said those words. Not in bed, not through messages, not when Natasha held you after nightmares or woke with her arm around your waist. Maybe you had known anyway, but hearing it was different. Under any other circumstances, it might have been the most beautiful thing anyone had ever said to you. Instead, it hurt.
“The more I cared about you..” Natasha whispered, “the more terrified I became that telling you would mean losing you.”
Your face crumpled. “So you lied because you didn’t want me to leave.”
“Yes.”
A broken laugh escaped you. “You took the choice away from me. You decided I could love you as long as I didn’t know enough to decide whether I should.”
“Yes.” That was it. You placed the photograph carefully on the desk. No matter what it represented now, your parents were still inside it and you couldn’t bring yourself to throw it. Then you headed toward the door. “Y/n, please.” But you kept walking. “Just let me explain the rest!”
You turned sharply. “Explain what? That there are more secrets? That Fury told you to do it? That you were protecting me?”
“No.”
“That you love me?”
Natasha froze. “You don’t get to use that right now.”
“I’m not trying to.”
“I trusted you more than anyone.”
Natasha looked shattered. “I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
She fell silent and you stepped into the hallway. “Leave me alone.”
“Y/n-”
“Do not follow me, Natasha, or I’ll scream.”
The words landed between you and Natasha obeyed. She remained where she was while you walked toward the elevator and didn’t even look back, not even when the doors opened. Only after they closed did Natasha allow her shoulders to fall. She had imagined losing you in a dozen ways: on missions, during training, because of some mistake she made too late to fix. She had never imagined the worst one would simply be you walking away because she had given you every reason to.
Lu looked up when the bedroom door opened. She sat cross legged on her bed with a laptop balanced on her knees while Maya rested at the desk. “Well?” Lu smiled. “Did Liho finally agree to shared custod-”
She stopped when she saw your face and Maya turned immediately. Both of them were standing before you managed to close the door. “Y/n?”
Lu reached you first. “What happened?”
You tried to answer, but nothing came out and Maya came closer. “Did she hurt you?” Something inside you broke and your knees gave way and Lu caught you before you hit the floor. “Hey. I’ve got you.”
“She k-knew..”
Lu frowned. “Who?”
“Natasha. She knew what happened to my parents!“
The room went silent and Maya’s hand stopped against your back. “What do you mean?”
“She was there..She was fucking there. She told me she wasn’t and told me she heard about it afterward..” Your hands covered your face. “She lied to me.”
Maya’s expression hardened. “Since when did she know who you were?”
“Before I even arrived..! She knew everything. She knew who my parents were, what I was looking for. She sat there and watched me cry about t-them.” Your voice collapsed. “I thanked her, Lu. I thanked her for telling me stories about them.”
Lu sat beside you and wrapped both arms around you. “I trusted her..” Lu held you while you cried against her shoulder and Maya moved beside you, one hand wrapped firmly around yours. For once, neither of them tried to make a joke or find the right sentence. There wasn’t one. They simply stayed..
Natasha did not remember deciding to go to Fury’s office. One moment she was standing in her quarters with the photograph lying crooked on the desk, your fingerprints faintly visible against the glass. The next, she was moving through the upper levels of the compound with her jaw clenched hard enough to hurt. She had left the photograph where it was. She couldn’t make herself touch it again.
Your mother was still smiling inside the frame. Your father stood beside her with one arm brushing Natasha’s shoulder, all three of them captured only hours before everything went wrong..before Natasha left them behind, before you lost both your parents, before seventeen years of lies began.
The compound had settled into its night rhythm, but Natasha barely noticed anyone she passed. One agent stepped aside without being asked. Another started to greet her, saw her face and changed his mind. Good.
The security officer outside Fury’s office straightened when she approached. “Agent Romanoff-“
“Open it.”
“He’s in a-”
The door opened from the inside and Fury stood several feet beyond it with a tablet in one hand. He took one look at Natasha and dismissed the officer with a nod. “Give us the room.”
Natasha entered without waiting for an invitation and the doors sealed behind her. Fury put the tablet down. “What happened?”
“She knows.” There was no need to explain who, so his expression changed immediately. “How much?”
“Enough.”
“How?”
That question finally cut through the anger. Until now, Natasha had been moving on instinct, furious at herself, at Fury, at S.H.I.E.L.D., at a mission seventeen years old that somehow still had enough life left in it to destroy something new. Now the reality of the situation caught up with her.
The photograph had been in Natasha’s quarters…you had been in Natasha’s quarters. Not because of an injury or a classified briefing. Not because she had called you there in any official capacity. You had been there because you had been spending nights in her bed. Because she had kissed you in that room. Because she had crossed the exact boundary she had warned herself about from the first day she opened your file.
“Romanoff.”
“She found a photograph.”
“Where?”
Natasha’s gaze hardened. “That isn’t relevant.”
“Considering you had possession of it, I’d say it is.”
“It was in my quarters.”
Fury went completely still and Natasha watched the calculation happen across his face and stepped forward before he could speak. “No.” He lifted an eyebrow.
“Whatever you are about to ask is not what we are discussing.”
“I haven’t asked anything.”
“You were going to.”
Fury studied her for a moment. On paper, there was no defending it: Natasha Romanoff, assigned instructor and evaluator, involved with a recruit under her direct supervision. Natasha knew exactly how it looked..worse, she knew what an investigation could do to you.
Your evaluations would be reviewed. Every decision Natasha had made involving you would become evidence. People would question whether you had earned command consideration, whether she had altered your scores, whether you had used a relationship with a superior officer to advance yourself. None of it would be true, but that wouldn’t stop anyone from asking. Fury finally sighed. “Did you compromise her evaluation?”
“No.”
“Did you pressure her?” Natasha’s expression sharpened so quickly that Fury raised one hand. “I had to ask.”
“No.”
“Did anything happen that she did not freely choose?”
“No.”
Fury held her gaze. “Then I trust you to understand how badly you’ve complicated your own life. Natasha gave a humorless laugh. “That’s generous.” He moved behind the desk again. “I’m not interested in policing your private life unless it interferes with the work or puts someone under your command in a position where they cannot say no.”
“It won’t happen again. Transfer her.” Fury’s expression closed. “Move her to Hill, Hayes, anyone qualified. I don’t care. She cannot remain under me.”
“No.” The answer came too quickly and Natasha stared at him. “What?”
“I can’t transfer her.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No.”
“You moved Alvarez three weeks ago because he couldn’t stop arguing with his squad commander!”
“This is different.”
“Then make it not different! I am telling you I am no longer capable of being objective where she is concerned.”
“Natasha, the timetable changed.”
„What does that mean?”
“The operational window is closing.”
“How far?” Fury hesitated. “How far, Nick?”
“Roughly two months.” For a second, the sentence meant nothing, but then it meant everything. “No..”
“Romanoff-”
“They have six months left!”
“Not anymore.”
“They aren’t ready!” Natasha stepped back from the desk. Physical readiness wasn’t the problem. Most of the recruits could fight, shoot, clear rooms and function inside tactical environments. That did not make them ready for what came next. They hadn’t finished advanced resistance training. Half of them still hesitated when command structures shifted without warning. Several had barely begun live environmental operations..they had improved as a unit, but they had never deployed internationally together. Six months had already been aggressive..two were reckless. “You cannot put them into the field in eight weeks.”
“We may not have a choice.”
“What happened?”
Fury leaned back slightly. “The network started moving assets forty-eight hours ago. Three emergency relocations. Two financial channels burned and a storage facility we’ve monitored for seven months was emptied overnight.” Natasha’s mind moved immediately.
“Someone warned them.”
“Yes.”
“From their side?”
Fury’s silence answered differently and Natasha’s stomach dropped. “..No.”
“We don’t know yet.”
“You think the leak is internal.”
“Hill is running counterintelligence now.”
For a moment, Fury’s office disappeared. Natasha saw smoke and rain, static swallowing radio traffic, a route that had been clear less than an hour earlier suddenly filled with armed men. She saw an extraction point destroyed before her team could reach it. Your mother looking at her through blood and ash. Someone had known. “Someone inside S.H.I.E.L.D. sold us out seventeen years ago.”
“We believe so.”
“And now someone may be doing it again.”
“We don’t know whether it is the same source, the same network, or someone using the same methods.”
A new thought reached Natasha. “The arena.” And Fury’s expression changed. The uncontrolled weapons..shutdown failure and the corrupted safety update. Engineering had called it a software conflict, so, Natasha felt the hair rise along her arms. “The arena wasn’t an accident.”
“We don’t know that.”
“The fire-control system ignored three separate shutdown procedures! Emergency power stayed active when it should have isolated the weapon network and the opposition program somehow corrupted the only safety layer capable of overriding it. Now you’re telling me someone inside this organization may be feeding information to the same network we’re preparing to hit.”
“Hill is investigating.”
“That isn’t enough.”
“It’s what we have.”
Natasha turned away. Twenty-two recruits. Twenty-two personnel files, access credentials, histories, training records. Twenty-two people who had been inside that arena. “The recruits?”
“We’re checking everyone.”
“Jesus Christ..”
“There is no evidence the leak originates in the program.”
“But it could.”
“Yes.”
You came into Natasha’s mind instantly. You inside the arena while weapons fired out of control. You disappearing from her command channel. You dragging Dawson through smoke. Your blood on someone else’s sleeve. Now there was a possibility that none of it had been accidental and someone might have deliberately tried to break the program. Natasha’s hands curled into fists. “We shut it down.”
“We can’t.”
“The mission.”
“We can’t.”
Natasha turned on him. “You are asking me to send their daughter into the same network that killed them while we may have another leak inside the organization!”
“It is not the same operation.”
“It is close enough!”
“If we shut it down now, everything we have spent seventeen years rebuilding disappears.”
“Good.”
“No. Not good.”
“I don’t care about your intelligence network.”
“You will when they disappear and build another one somewhere we can’t see.”
Natasha said nothing and Fury stepped closer. “They’re moving because they know something. If they vanish now, we lose the archive, personnel lists, financial routes and potentially the names of every asset they have recruited inside allied agencies.”
“And if we go?”
“We finish what Nightglass failed to finish.”
Natasha’s face changed. “Don’t phrase it like that.”
“I’m not trying to make this personal.”
“It became personal seventeen years ago.”
Fury’s voice lowered. “That is why Hill is tearing through every clearance log, communication record and system access from the last year. Nobody deploys while we still believe we have an active internal leak.”
“And if you don’t find them?”
“We will.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have tonight.”
For a few seconds, neither spoke. Then the anger left Natasha almost as quickly as it had come and sat down. Fury had seen her shot, drugged and bleeding badly enough that she should have been unconscious. He had rarely seen her look this tired. “What am I supposed to do?” she asked. The question was so quiet he nearly missed it. Natasha looked at her hands. “I spent seventeen years thinking about what I should have done differently. Every route, every order, every second. And now you want me to prepare their daughter to walk into the same network while we’re investigating another internal betrayal.”
Fury waited before answering. “No. I want you to make sure history doesn’t repeat itself.”
Natasha looked up. “And if I can’t?”
“Then we don’t deploy.” She studied him carefully. “You mean that?”
“Yes.”
“No identified leak, no operation.”
“Yes.”
Natasha held his gaze, then stood. “Y/l/n gets the file.”
Fury’s expression changed. “Romanoff-”
“No.”
“The original report contains compartmentalized intelligence.”
“Redact active assets. Nothing else.”
“She is not cleared for the entire report.”
“She deserves to know how her parents died!”
“And if it destabilizes her one month before selection?”
“Then she decides whether she wants to stay.”
Fury stared at her and Natasha did not look away. “She decides.” After a long moment, Fury reached for his tablet. “I’ll have a copy prepared.”
Natasha closed her eyes briefly. It definitely wasn’t forgiveness and fixed nothing. But for once, it was the truth.
You couldn’t remember falling asleep. There was no memory of turning off the lamp or pulling the blanket over yourself. One moment you had been sitting between Lu and Maya with your mother’s unfinished message repeating inside your head and the next thin morning light stretched across the ceiling.
Your eyes hurt and your throat was raw. Your body felt heavy without feeling rested. The moment you became awake enough to understand where you were, Natasha came back. Not only the Natasha from last night, but version of her. Her voice correcting your stance. Her fingers adjusting your vest. The first strange look she gave you when you entered the program. Natasha telling you your mother stole coffee and your father carried your photograph everywhere. Her laughter over messages. Her hand wrapped around yours. Liho asleep across your legs. Natasha looking at you like you were something she had never expected to want.
You remembered waking in her bed, watching her stand in the doorway with damp hair and coffee in her hand. You remembered telling her you didn’t regret what happened between you. Neither do I. Then the photograph replaced everything.
Were you there?
Yes.
Did they know they were going to die?
Yes.
You covered your face. How had you missed it? You had spent months learning Natasha’s expressions. You knew when she was irritated, when she was tired, when her silence meant anger and when it meant she was trying not to say something softer. You had believed that meant you knew her. All along, she had carried an entire graveyard behind her face. And this was Natasha Romanoff..the Black Widow. A woman who had survived by lying convincingly. Somehow you had still convinced yourself you would recognize a lie because she held your hand differently than she held anyone else’s.
Across the room, Lu was already awake. Maya sat near the edge of her bed tightening the brace around her injured thigh. Neither spoke and you were grateful for that. In the bathroom, your reflection was brutal: swollen eyes, pale skin, tangled hair. Lu appeared in the doorway. “Do you want us to say you’re sick?”
“No.” You washed your face and dressed slowly. Your hands paused at the zipper, because Natasha had undone this jacket before. At breakfast, you barely touched anything until Lu pushed toast toward you.
You forced down half, because an infuriating thought surfaced. Natasha would notice if you arrived unfed and you nearly stopped eating again. Maya looked at you. “Eat because I’m telling you to.” You gave her a tired look. “Better?”
By 0945, recruits were gathering in the main corridor. Something was wrong immediately. Usually the morning assignment appeared before breakfast ended. Today, nothing had arrived until 0938. Then every recruit received the same message. REPORT TO BRIEFING ROOM ONE. 1000 HOURS. FULL UNIT.
When the doors to Briefing Room One opened, you saw Natasha standing at the front and something inside your chest tightened. She looked perfectly composed. Uniform immaculate, hair pulled back, tablet resting on the table beside her. There was no visible trace of the woman you had screamed at less than twelve hours earlier.
Hayes stood nearby and Hill waited beside the projection screen. Fury remained near the back wall. All of them together meant something serious had happened. Natasha saw you enter and the change in her was almost invisible. Her shoulders went still, her eyes lingering on you for less than a second. You looked away because you simply couldn’t look at her. You sat between Lu and Maya, opened your notebook and stared toward the screen. Natasha forced herself to focus. There was the woman who wanted to cross the room and ask if you had slept and there was Agent Romanoff, about to tell twenty-two recruits they had just lost five months of preparation.
She chose the second. “Yesterday.” Natasha began once everyone had settled, “you were operating under the assumption that this program had approximately six months remaining before final deployment. That is no longer accurate.” The screen illuminated behind her. A satellite image showed a reinforced facility beneath a mountainside, surrounded by forest and service roads. “This is a Vesper operational site.”
The name meant nothing to most of the room. “Vesper is a transnational intelligence and weapons network operating through smaller cells across Europe, Asia and North Africa. They specialize in intelligence brokerage, weapons development, covert logistics and classified material. Your program was created around a future operation targeting this site.”
The room shifted. Until now, the mission had been abstract. Now it had walls and an enemy.. Natasha changed the image to internal schematics. “The operation has three primary objectives: infiltrate the command facility without triggering a full evacuation, recover the central intelligence archive and identify Vesper assets embedded inside allied agencies. Senior command personnel are to be captured where possible.” Lu stopped fidgeting and Maya stared at the screen.
“This operation was originally scheduled for approximately six months from now. Forty-eight hours ago, Vesper changed its routine.” A recruit near the front frowned. “When?”
“Within sixty days.”
The room erupted. “Sixty days?”
“We had six months..”
Natasha allowed the confusion for a moment, then she raised her voice. “Listen. You heard correctly. The operational window has moved.” Dawson leaned forward. “How long do we have?”
Natasha looked across all twenty-two faces. “Fifty eight days before final deployment readiness is assessed.” Nobody spoke.
You had entered the room believing nothing could temporarily push Natasha and your parents out of your thoughts. This did. Fifty eight days to become whatever S.H.I.E.L.D. had expected you to become in six months. Fifty eight days before simulations could become a real facility and practice rounds could become bullets. “That’s not possible.”
“That was my response too.” The honesty surprised everyone. “When I received this information last night, I said you were not ready.” Your gaze lifted before you could stop it and Natasha saw. For half a second, your eyes met, but you looked away again.
“I still believe you are not ready.” she continued. “Today. You are not deploying today or tomorrow. You have Fifty eight days.” She let the number settle differently this time. Not as something stolen, but as something remaining. “Fifty-eight days to prove that six months was a convenience, not a requirement.”
The screen changed and a brutal schedule appeared. Live-fire assessment, advanced breach operations, interrogation resistance, night deployments, medical trauma response.. There were no empty days.
“For the next eight weeks, basic instruction is over.” Natasha said. “If you still need someone to teach you how to clear a room or hold a weapon, you will not be selected.” That word shifted the atmosphere. Selected.
“Twenty-two of you entered this program. Six will deploy. Not the six strongest. Not the six fastest. Not the six highest test scores. Six people who can function as one unit when everything stops going according to plan.”
Everyone thought of the arena. “We will evaluate judgment, adaptability, discipline, team function and recovery under stress. We will pay attention to whether people trust you when they are afraid.”
Her eyes found yours. “Whether you deserve that trust after making a mistake.”
Your heart stopped for half a second, then she moved on before it became about the two of you. “If your only goal is to become one of those six, you will fail. Competition matters, but if you start treating the person beside you as someone you need to defeat, I will remove you myself. The six people who deploy will survive because the sixteen who don’t pushed them hard enough to deserve it.” The room slowly changed and fear remained, but focus appeared beside it.
“You’ve spent months complaining that I expect too much from you.” Several mouths twitched. “You were right.”
A faint laugh passed through the recruits. “I did. And I am about to expect more.” She looked toward the image of the Vesper facility. “You’re tired. Some of you are scared. Good. Fear is information and it tells you the consequences matter.” Her eyes returned to the room.
“Fifty eight days is not enough time to become perfect. It is enough time to become dangerous.” Something electric moved through the group. “You were chosen because someone believed you had the potential to operate at this level. Potential means nothing now. You want one of those six positions? Earn it. You make a mistake, fix it. You fail, learn faster. You’re afraid, move anyway and if somebody beside you starts falling behind, pull them forward, because tomorrow they may be the person standing between you and a bullet.” By the time she finished, the fear hadn’t disappeared, but neither had anyone’s determination.
“Final preparation begins this afternoon. Until then, return to your quarters. Eat, hydrate, sleep if you can. Call whoever you need to call before your schedules stop belonging to you. Report to Training Area One at 1400 in full combat gear.” She paused. “Dismissed.”
The room came alive and chairs scraped across the floor, and nervous conversations started immediately. Fifty-eight days and six people.. You gathered your things and left between Lu and Maya without looking at Natasha. The second the three of you entered your room, Lu shut the door. “Fifty eight days!!” Maya dropped onto her bed. “I heard.”
“No, I need someone to say it again because my brain rejected it.”
Normally, you would have laughed. Instead, you removed your jacket and hung it over the chair. Your thoughts felt divided between two places: Natasha’s room last night and the Vesper facility from the briefing. Six people. A week ago, finding out only six recruits would deploy would have consumed you, but now one detail mattered more. Natasha had learned about the accelerated mission last night.
While you were crying in this room. Had she gone directly to Fury afterward? Had they discussed you-
Two knocks interrupted the thought and your stomach dropped before Lu even opened the door. Natasha stood in the hallway holding a gray folder. “Agent Romanoff.” Lu said automatically. Then she remembered and her expression cooled. “What are you doing here?”
“Is Y/l/n here?”
“No.”
You blinked and Maya stared at the back of Lu’s head. Natasha’s gaze flicked briefly toward your jacket hanging in plain sight. “Bennett.”
“She doesn’t want to see you.” The real answer and Natasha’s jaw tightened. “I need to speak with her.”
“No.” Lu looked mildly terrified by her own courage, but she didn’t move. Under any other circumstances, Natasha could have ordered her aside. She had the authority and also also knew exactly what using it would prove. “I’m not here to force her to talk to me.” Natasha said. “I came to give her this.”
She lifted the folder and Lu looked down. Your entire body went cold when you saw the words. OPERATION NIGHTGLASS.
“This is the complete mission file.” Natasha said and Lu reached for it. Natasha held on for another second. “There are photographs, medical reports and audio transcripts. Some of it is difficult to read. She should know that before she opens it.”
“I’ll tell her.” Natasha released the folder. “Everyone else reports to Training Area One at fourteen hundred. Y/l/n stands down today.” Your head lifted. “She won’t be penalized.” Natasha continued. “Her position in the program doesn’t change. She reports tomorrow at the standard time if she chooses to continue. If she wants to speak to Fury after she reads it, call Hayes. He’ll arrange it.” Natasha looked past Lu once, she knew you were there..You hated how quickly your body remembered wanting Natasha before your mind reminded you why you shouldn’t, so you stayed where you were and Natasha turned away.
Only after she disappeared down the corridor did Lu close the door and leaned back against it. “I just told Natasha Romanoff no..”
Normally, you would have laughed, but you couldn’t. Lu crossed the room and held out the file. “This is it.” You stared at the cover. Operation Nightglass.
For years, you had imagined finding it. You had imagined anger, relief, vindication, but you had never imagined fear.. “Natasha said there are photographs, medical reports and audio transcripts.”
Maya touched your shoulder. “You don’t have to open it right now.”
“Yes, I do.”
Beneath the old classification markings was a new authorization stamp. ACCESS AUTHORIZED: AGENT Y/L/N.
You had spent your entire life being told you didn’t have clearance to know how your parents died. Apparently all it took was falling in love with the woman who had watched it happen and that thought made you sick. Lu and Maya offered to stay, but you refused. They had training and whatever was inside the folder was something you needed to face eventually. Before leaving, Lu hugged you hard enough to hurt.
“If you need us, call.”
“I will.”
“If you start spiraling-”
“I’ll call.”
Maya dragged her out and the door closed. For almost ten minutes, you didn’t touch the file. You drank water, walked to the desk, sat down, stood again and the folder waited. You hated it for that. Hated that the truth could sit quietly on your bed after ruining years of your life simply by being absent. Eventually, you sat beside it and rested your fingers against the cover..and opened it.
The first corridors were empty. Natasha noticed it immediately and your mother noticed Natasha noticing. A camera that should have been looping wasn’t moving. A security door intelligence claimed would be locked stood partially open. The first shot came through the wall beside Natasha’s head before anyone could answer and the corridor erupted. Armed men appeared from positions that should have been empty, firing directly into the route S.H.I.E.L.D. had planned to use.
Your mother shouted what all three of them already understood. “They knew the entry route!”
From then on, the mission became damage control. Fury redirected them toward the secondary approach while ordering them to maintain the original objective. Natasha hated it, but the archive was the reason they had gone in and command still believed retrieving it justified the risk.
They fought their way downstairs. One agent died on the stairwell when a round entered beneath his jaw. Another had his shoulder shattered in an explosion. By the time they reached the archive level, half their intelligence had already proven wrong. The archive itself, however, was exactly where it was supposed to be, that was when Natasha first understood something worse.
Whoever had betrayed them had not wanted S.H.I.E.L.D. to stay away. They had wanted them inside. Less than a minute later, explosions began beneath the facility and the enemy was collapsing the structure. Fury immediately abandoned the original extraction point and transmitted new coordinates east of their position. Natasha remembered seeing the route appear across her display and looking toward your mother.
She saw the same thought reflected back. They were being pushed exactly where the enemy wanted them. The team was already wounded, the facility was failing around them, and hostile forces were closing from behind. They ran.
Your mother was hit three corridors from the eastern exit and Natasha heard the impact before she saw the blood. The round entered low beneath the edge of her armor and remained somewhere inside her abdomen. Your father caught her before she hit the ground and Natasha immediately tried to stabilize the wound. Within minutes, your mother could barely stand.
Blood soaked through Natasha’s gloves every time she pressed against the injury. Extraction was less than two minutes away, Fury kept telling them, but your mother collapsed against the wall before they reached it. Your father refused to leave her. Natasha could see rain through the damaged side of the building. They were painfully close to getting out, but gunfire was moving toward them from the corridor behind and several other agents were wounded badly enough to need help.
Your mother told your father to go, but he refused. Natasha ordered both of them to move, but your mother couldn’t support her own weight anymore and your father would not leave her behind. That was where the mission divided. Natasha remembered your father pushing one of the injured junior agents toward her. “Take him.”
“I can get everyone out.”
“No, you can’t.”
“Extraction is right there. I can come back.”
Your mother looked at Natasha with an exhausted calm that frightened her more than the gunfire. She already knew what was going to happen. Then Fury came through Natasha’s comm with the order that would follow her for the next seventeen years. The objective came first.
Natasha had the archive secured against her vest and several mobile survivors still capable of extraction. She was ordered to take them east, but refused. Fury repeated the order and your mother told her to listen.
Your father shouted at her to go and eventually, Natasha obeyed. That was the part she had never forgiven herself for. Not because the order was tactically wrong, but because she followed it. She helped one injured agent toward the breach while another limped beside them, forcing herself forward despite every instinct screaming at her to turn around. Then static exploded across her comm. Your mother’s voice broke through. “Nat, we’re pinned on the east side-”
Natasha stopped and gunfire swallowed the rest. Your father was shouting somewhere behind her, his voice distorted by distance and static. Natasha heard panic before she understood the words, then his voice came through clearly. “Get her out!”
Natasha turned immediately, but fury ordered her not to. She could still remember standing in the rain with the archive strapped against her chest while extraction personnel rushed toward the wounded agents beside her, knowing your parents were still alive only a few hundred meters away. She told Fury she could go back, but he told her an extraction team was already redirecting. She argued and he gave her a direct order to remain with the objective.
Then your mother’s voice came through again. “Natasha-” Static swallowed the rest. Natasha got into the extraction vehicle and lasted less than a minute. The vehicle had barely cleared the immediate fire zone when another explosion tore through the eastern side of the facility. Natasha looked back through the open door and watched part of the structure collapse. She ordered the driver to stop, but he refused. Fury told her response teams were moving in and ordered her again to stay with the archive.
Natasha jumped out anyway. By the time she fought her way back toward the east side, the gunfire had almost completely stopped. The silence was worse and rain poured through the collapsed roof and mixed with dust until the floor had become gray mud beneath her boots. Natasha called your mother’s name first, then your father’s, but nobody answered. She found your father beside the remains of a support column, his weapon still lying near his hand. His fingers were curled inside his vest, close to the pocket where he kept your photograph.
Natasha checked his pulse even though she already knew there wouldn’t be one. Then another agent shouted from farther inside. Your mother was against the same wall where she had fallen earlier. The gunfire had reached her again before the collapse. Natasha dropped beside her and pressed her hands against wounds that no longer mattered. Blood mixed with rainwater beneath your mother, running in thin red streams across the concrete.
The official report recorded their deaths at 03:17 following hostile engagement and structural collapse. It stated that Agent Romanoff completed extraction of the archive and three injured personnel before returning to the facility against direct command instruction. It recorded that both of your parents were already dead when she reached them. The report did not mention Natasha kneeling in rainwater beside your mother until another agent physically pulled her away. It did not mention the photograph she found inside your father’s vest, one corner stained with blood.
And it did not record the promise she made while holding it. Natasha had looked down at the six-year-old girl in the red coat and silently promised that if she ever had the chance, she would make sure you never ended the same way. Seventeen years later, sitting with the Nightglass file open in front of you, you maybe understood her.
You understood why Natasha had looked terrified when you went back for Dawson during the arena disaster. Why she had screamed when you disappeared from communications. Why You cannot save everyone had sounded less like instruction and more like something being torn out of her. Most of all, you understood why your question outside the arena had destroyed her.
What kind of agent am I supposed to be if I can hear someone calling for help and decide they’re someone else’s problem?
Because seventeen years earlier, Natasha had done exactly that. Not because she didn’t care or she wanted to leave them. Because someone in her ear had told her the mission came first and for a few terrible minutes she had obeyed. But by the time Natasha chose differently, it was already too late and understanding Natasha’s decision did not mean forgiving it.
You could understand why she had followed Fury’s order seventeen years ago. You could understand the archive strapped to her vest, the wounded agents depending on her, the extraction vehicle waiting while the building collapsed behind them. You could even understand why your parents had stayed. What you could not forgive was everything that came afterward.
Seventeen years of silence. Months of Natasha looking you in the face while knowing exactly who you were and what had happened to them. Letting you trust her, letting you fall in love with her, and choosing to lie anyway. So when you returned to training the next morning, the Nightglass file remained locked beneath your bed, and something inside you felt locked away with it.
And damn, final preparation was brutal. Whatever Natasha had called training during the previous months had apparently been the merciful version, because the new fifty eight days schedule consumed everything: sleep, free time, privacy and eventually any illusion that your body belonged entirely to you.
The first week began before sunrise and rarely ended before darkness. Live ammunition replaced marking rounds, not aimed directly at recruits, but close enough that the crack of a bullet striking steel beside your head changed the atmosphere immediately. There were no sensor lights or instructors announcing simulated casualties anymore. Mistakes were beginning to resemble the mistakes you could make in the field. Natasha made sure nobody forgot it.
“Again.”
A collective groan moved through the mock apartment. You stood near the breached doorway with sweat running beneath your armor. Reeves leaned against the wall, Dawson was breathing hard beside him, Maya checked her magazine behind you and even Lu had become too exhausted to make jokes.
“Six point four seconds. Standard is five.”
Reeves muttered something and Natasha’s eyes found him immediately. “Would you like to share?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Wonderful. Reset.”
You ran it again and again. Five point nine seconds became five point six, then five point two. By the seventh attempt, Lu’s hands shook during her reload. On the ninth, Maya overcommitted to a doorway and missed her assigned corner. Natasha stopped the drill. “You’re dead.”
Maya swallowed. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Why?”
“I was watching Y/l/n’s sector.”
Natasha’s gaze moved briefly toward you. Maya corrected herself. “I was watching the wrong sector.”
“Yes.”
Natasha stepped inside. “Caring about the person beside you does not mean watching them instead of doing your job. In the field, you protect them by doing yours.”
The words were meant for Maya, but they hit you anyway. Your eyes lifted to Natasha’s and for half a second, neither of you moved. Then you looked away. “Reset.” Natasha ordered.
The second week was worse. Sleep deprivation, navigation without digital equipment, medical stabilization while instructors shouted conflicting orders, interrogation resistance, surveillance shifts followed immediately by physical assessments. You stopped organizing your life by days. It became a cycle of training, eating, studying and sleeping whenever there was time. Whenever your thoughts threatened to wander somewhere you didn’t want them, you studied harder.
You learned everything S.H.I.E.L.D. had on Vesper: facility architecture, known personnel, financial routes, weapons procurement, communication patterns and historical operations. You read Nightglass most of all. Again and again, until entire sections of your parents’ after-action report lived inside your head.
Natasha noticed the change in you before anyone else. At first, she convinced herself it was normal. Everyone was pushing harder because everyone had lost five months of preparation, but your version of harder became something different. You arrived first and stayed last, you requested additional weapons drills and historical access to Vesper files. You stopped complaining entirely and Natasha discovered quickly that she preferred your sarcasm. Complaints meant you still had room to breathe. Silence meant you were disappearing into yourself.
Your performance improved, but something about it became sharper. You were cleaner in combat, quicker in tactical environments and far less patient with mistakes. During a timed corridor assessment, Reeves missed the same exit for the third time.
“Again. ” you said and he bent over, hands on his knees. “We’ve run it six times.”
“And you’ve missed the same corner three.”
“It costs half a second.”
“It costs whoever is behind you a clean field of fire. Fix it.”
Reeves stared at you before silently resetting and Natasha watched from the observation line beside Hayes. “She’s getting good.” he said. “She was already good.”
“You know what I mean.”
Natasha folded her arms. “She’s running on anger.”
“And?”
“Anger is excellent fuel until you need to stop.”
Hayes looked toward you as you rearranged the team yourself, moving Lu two positions and correcting Dawson’s stance with a short gesture. “She’s leading.”
“She’s controlling.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Leadership leaves space for other people to think. She isn’t doing enough of that.”
She tried to speak to you three times during those first weeks. The first was after weapons assessment, when you stayed behind cleaning equipment after everyone else had left. “Y/n.”
Your hands stopped briefly before continuing.
“Yes, Agent Romanoff?” The title hurt more than Natasha expected. “I wanted to ask how you’re doing.”
“With training?”
“With everything.”
You set the cleaning cloth down. “I’m fine.”
Natasha almost laughed at the cruelty of hearing the lie you used to accuse her of. “You don’t have to pretend with me..”
Your eyes finally lifted. “I’m not pretending. Am I dismissed?”
Natasha wanted to say no. Wanted to make you stay for five minutes and stop looking at her as though she were a stranger. Instead, she moved aside. “Yes.”
The fourth time, she never reached you. You were sitting alone in the cafeteria after midnight, one hand against your forehead while facility schematics glowed across your laptop. Natasha saw you through the glass doors and took a step toward you. Then she remembered your voice. Leave me alone.
She turned away and you happened to look up in time to see her reflection disappear from the glass and hated how much you wished she had come inside. That was the part you refused to admit. You missed her. Apparently anger did not stop that. Neither did betrayal. You missed her in small, stupid places. Your phone was silent now, no photographs of Liho sitting on Natasha’s paperwork, no dry comments about training, no messages asking whether you had eaten or whether your shoulder hurt. You still checked sometimes and hated yourself every time. You missed her room too. Not only the sex, but the quiet..the way the compound disappeared when the door closed, the way Natasha could read reports with your feet in her lap, the way Liho had begun sleeping against your hip. You missed waking beside someone and feeling safe before you remembered that safety could be taken away.
Sometimes you passed Natasha in a corridor and both of you slowed almost imperceptibly before continuing in opposite directions. Every time softness threatened to creep back in, you remembered one sentence. I wasn’t on their final operation. The lie was enough to keep you moving.
By the end of the third week, the program had begun to shrink. There were no dramatic eliminations or names displayed publicly on screens. People simply reached their limits. Peterson withdrew after a twenty-hour command assessment, admitting afterward that he could no longer distinguish between wanting the mission and wanting to prove he deserved it. Another recruit failed medical readiness because of repeated stress injuries. Two requested reassignment after the first extended live-fire exercise, and another decided after interrogation resistance that field intelligence was not the life they wanted.
Twenty-two became eighteen. Then fourteen. Then eleven. At the beginning of the program, every withdrawal would have meant one less person competing for six positions. Now everyone remaining understood that the people leaving had trained beside them, bled beside them and dragged them through exercises when they thought they could not continue. When Dawson received a medical reassignment because of a knee injury three days before final selection, Lu cried in the bathroom where he couldn’t see her.
Now there were six positions. Nobody spoke much on the walk to the briefing room. Lu stayed beside you, unusually quiet. Maya walked on your other side with her hands buried in her uniform pockets. Reeves and Carter were several steps ahead, speaking too softly to hear, while Nguyen followed nearby.
You had imagined this morning countless times. Months ago, the anticipation would have made you sick. Now the feeling was different. You still wanted the mission, what just had changed was the woman deciding whether you deserved to go. Natasha stood at the front when the eleven of you entered. Fury waited near one side of the room, Hill on the other and Hayes stood beside the projection wall with a tablet tucked beneath one arm.
Nobody needed an explanation. There were no schedules or tactical diagrams on the screen and only six empty lines. Natasha’s gaze traveled across the room. When it reached you, it did not linger.
“For the last thirty days, you have been evaluated under conditions designed to remove as much predictability as possible.” Natasha began. “Physical and tactical performance mattered, but neither was enough. We evaluated command decisions, recovery after failure, medical response, interpersonal function, weapons discipline, and whether you could accept useful information from someone you disagreed with.”
A few recruits glanced at one another and Natasha noticed. “Some of you improved dramatically. Some discovered another operational track suits you better. That does not make anyone in this room better than those who left. It means six people fit this mission.”
Your pulse increased and Natasha looked briefly toward Fury. He nodded and she turned back.
“Bennett.” Lu stopped breathing beside you and for half a second, she looked genuinely confused. Then Maya touched her wrist.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Selected.”
Her name appeared on the first line and Lu sat very slowly, staring at the screen as if it might change its mind. “Maya Patel.” Maya’s head lifted.
“Selected.”
Two. Then Carter, Nguyen and Reeves. Five names filled the screen and your stomach tightened. Natasha stopped and for several seconds, the room seemed to stop with her. Five..there should have been six. Of course.. Maybe you had expected this because whatever Natasha believed about your abilities, choosing you would complicate everything. Fury knew about the relationship now. Perhaps Natasha had decided the cleanest answer was to remove you from the equation entirely or perhaps she simply didn’t trust you. You looked down at your hands and tried to accept that possibility before it could hurt. Then Fury spoke. “Romanoff.” You looked up and he was watching Natasha. “Your deputy?”
Something changed in the room..Second in command had never been presented as a separate position. Lu turned toward you instinctively before forcing herself to look ahead and Natasha slowly scanned the remaining recruits. Then her eyes found yours and this time, they stayed. “Y/l/n.”
You forgot to breathe and your name appeared on the sixth line. Y/L/N - OPERATIONAL DEPUTY
You stared at the screen before looking back at Natasha. Her expression revealed almost nothing, but you knew her too well for nothing to be empty. There was tension around her mouth, something painful behind her eyes, and beneath both of those things was certainty. Fury stepped forward. “Agent Y/l/n.”
You stood. “Yes, sir.”
“You understand the position?”
“Yes.”
“I want to hear it.”
Your throat felt dry. “If Agent Romanoff becomes unable to maintain operational command, field authority transfers to me.”
“Not only if she becomes unconscious.”
“No, sir.”
“If she is injured?”
“If the injury compromises her ability to lead, I assume command.”
“If communications separate your elements?”
“I maintain authority over mine until command is restored.” Fury watched you carefully. “And if Romanoff gives you an order you believe will destroy the mission?”
The question landed differently and for a second, you were back in the arena. Your eyes moved toward her and Natasha did not look away. “I challenge it with the information I have.” you said. “If there is time, I confirm. If there isn’t, I make the decision necessary to preserve the mission and the team.”
“Even if that means contradicting Romanoff?”
“Yes, sir.”
Something almost invisible shifted in Natasha’s expression and Fury nodded. “This is not an honorary position. If Romanoff goes down, there is no committee and no time to decide whether you feel ready. Her mission becomes yours. Her personnel become yours, every casualty becomes your responsibility.”
Your stomach tightened. “I understand.”
“Do you accept?”
For one strange second, everything in the room disappeared except Natasha. There was too much between you that had nothing to do with command, but none of it changed the answer. “Yes, sir. I accept.”
“Good.”
You sat down and only then did you notice your hands were shaking. Lu pressed her knee lightly against yours beneath the table and Natasha looked toward the six names. “Then this is the field unit.”
Something eased through the room. “The next phase belongs exclusively to Nightglass preparation.” Natasha continued. “Beginning tomorrow, your training separates from the rest of the program. Everyone not selected remains eligible as an alternate until deployment.”
The disappointment among the five others was visible and Natasha looked directly at them. “You did not fail. We would not have six people capable of deploying if eleven people had not spent the last month forcing one another to improve.” It did not erase the disappointment, but kinda helped.
Hill spoke for the first time. “Selected personnel remain after dismissal. Everyone else returns to quarters.” You glanced toward her. Hill had appeared more often throughout the final weeks, watching from observation rooms, attending security briefings, disappearing again before drills began. You assumed deployment was the reason..it was only partly true.
For three weeks, Hill had been running a second operation beneath the first. The recruits knew nothing about it, because they weren’t supposed to. Once S.H.I.E.L.D. realized Vesper might have been warned about Nightglass from inside the organization, preparing a field team was no longer enough. They needed to find the leak without letting that person know they were being hunted.
Direct surveillance risked exposure. Broad restrictions would tell the mole that S.H.I.E.L.D. suspected something, and interviews were nearly useless against agents trained to control themselves under pressure. So Hill stopped looking for a confession and controlled the information instead. During the second week of accelerated training, the remaining recruits had been split into rotating planning cells under the explanation that command wanted to test compartmentalized mission preparation. Each group received almost identical information about Nightglass.
Almost. The facility was real and vesper was real. The insertion routes were not. One cell was told S.H.I.E.L.D. was considering an abandoned railway tunnel north of the facility. Another received a western drainage route. A third was briefed on an eastern forestry road ending near a disused electrical station. Every route was plausible, but none was genuine. The details were kept off shared servers and printed briefing packets were collected after each session.
Then Hill waited. Forty-one hours after the eastern route was briefed, a surveillance asset watching Vesper reported unusual activity near the electrical station. Two vehicles and a drone sweep. A security team inspecting a road Vesper had ignored for months..There was no reason for them to care about that location unless someone had told them S.H.I.E.L.D. did. Four recruits had received that exact version and Reeves was one.
Hill refused to decide he was guilty simply because the answer was convenient, but she investigated all four. One suspicious login turned out to be a system clock error. Another recruit’s encrypted external messages led only to an undeclared girlfriend. Carter’s credentials had touched the route briefing outside approved hours because an instructor had left a terminal unlocked. That left Reeves.
The selected team remained after everyone else left. Each of you received new compartmentalized credentials tailored to your role. Maya received medical and environmental planning and Lu was assigned communications support and field logistics. Carter received breach architecture, Nguyen surveillance and external movement and Reeves security-response modeling. As Natasha’s deputy, you received considerably more, but not everything.
“Why is the insertion package sealed?” Natasha stood across the table. “Because it isn’t finalized.”
You stared at her for a second before nodding. “Understood.”
Something tightened in her face and Hill noticed. Thirty minutes later, the six of you left and only after the door sealed did Natasha turn toward her. “You’re still using them.”
Hill did not bother denying it. “Yes.”
“The selection announcement was part of the investigation.”
“We needed to know whether the final roster caused movement outside.”
Natasha’s jaw tightened. “They’re not bait.”
“The information is.”
There was a difference, but Natasha still hated it. “Every selected recruit received harmless variations in their digital files: metadata watermarks, timing markers, formatting signatures. If material leaves our network, we may be able to identify which package it came from.”
“And the recruits who weren’t selected?”
“Still monitored. If the mole didn’t make the team, selection may force them to act.”
Fury leaned against the table. “Deadlines make people careless.”
Natasha thought of the arena. Twenty-two recruits inside while automated weapons tore through concrete. “If the leak is connected to what happened there…”
“We’ll know.” Hill said and Natasha wasn’t sure whether she believed her.
Four days after selection, one of Hill’s analysts recovered fragments of the corrupted arena safety update. Most of the malicious code had destroyed itself during the crash, but one fragment survived: a compression wrapper surrounding the command payload. It was unusual because of how ordinary it looked.
Someone had designed it to resemble legitimate system traffic and an analyst remembered seeing the structure before. S.H.I.E.L.D. searched its forensic archive. The same coding pattern had appeared eleven months earlier during a failed attempt to remove data from a logistics terminal.
“Similarity?” Hill asked.
“Ninety-six percent.”
“Could someone have copied it?”
“Possible.”
“Likely?”
“No.”
The arena stopped being an accident, so Hill ordered a second review. This time, they ignored what the malicious package had done and focused on how it entered the system. It had been introduced through a maintenance terminal two levels above the arena seventy three hours before the exercise. Thirty-four people could have reached that corridor during the relevant period and six were recruits..and yet again, Reeves was one of them.
Then they found seven missing minutes in the corridor cameras. The command had been entered using a legitimate engineering supervisor’s credentials while that supervisor was home asleep. Someone had cloned his short range authentication token. That required preparation, technical knowledge and access to S.H.I.E.L.D. hardware.
Hill pulled Reeves’s file again and everything looked normal. Excellent physical scores, average systems training and unremarkable family history, education and travel records. “Reverify his background from zero.”
Her analyst hesitated. “It has already been cleared twice.”
“Do it again.” The first inconsistency appeared in his medical history. A physician had supposedly signed one examination eighteen months after his own death. Then came a school-transfer certificate issued on a Sunday by an office that had never opened weekends. A passport photograph contained metadata older than the camera model listed in the issuance record. None of those details could happen by accident together. Someone had built a life designed to survive government screening long before he ever applied to S.H.I.E.L.D.
That changed everything. He had not been recruited by Vesper after entering the program..He had entered the program already belonging to them. Still, Hill waited, because if she arrested him too early and happened to be wrong, the real mole would disappear. If she was right and Reeves sensed suspicion, people could die. So she needed proof and while she searched for it, Natasha kept placing weapons in his hands.
Friday evening finally brought something resembling relief. After another exhausting week, Natasha ended the last drill at nineteen hundred. The six of you stood in Training Area One with armor half undone and exhaustion visible on every face. Maya had a bruise forming along her jaw, Carter had simply sat down on the floor, Nguyen had stopped pretending he wasn’t starving, Reeves leaned against a barrier drinking water, and Lu lay flat on her back.
“Tomorrow is recovery.” Lu’s head lifted. “What?”
Natasha looked at her. “Would you prefer training?”
“No.”
“Then stop sounding suspicious.”
Lu lowered her head again. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Sunday at eight hundred. Until then, I don’t want to see any of you in a training area.” As Natasha headed toward the door, Lu whispered too loudly, “Dinner at eight?”
Maya groaned. “I need a shower!”
“That’s why I said eight.” Nguyen looked toward Reeves. “South common room?”
“Works.”
Soon even some of the recruits who had not been selected were invited and Natasha stopped before leaving and looked back at all of you. Something about the scene caught her unexpectedly. For months, you had competed for six places, had bruised one another, resented scores and silently measured yourselves against everyone else in the room. Now the people who had not been chosen were making dinner plans with the ones who had. This was what Natasha had wanted from the beginning. A unit people wanted to come home to.
Natasha dismissed the unit and watched you disappear toward the locker rooms together. For one moment, she allowed herself to believe this might actually work, till her phone vibrated.
HILL: COMMAND BRIEFING. 2130. PRIORITY.
Natasha entered Secure Briefing Four at 21:32. Fury and Hayes were already there. Two counterintelligence analysts stood at the far end of the table and Hill remained standing. That was Natasha’s first warning. The second was the screen behind her and four personnel photographs. Reeves was one of them and Natasha’s stomach tightened. “What happened?”
“The eastern-route deception worked. Vesper reacted thirty eight hours after the relevant planning group received the information. Four recruits had access.” Two photographs disappeared as Hill explained how the others had been cleared.
“The arena payload also used a software wrapper previously associated with Vesper. We confirmed the match this afternoon.” Hill changed the screen again. “Reeves had physical access to the corridor where the sabotage entered the system.”
“That still isn’t proof.”
“I know.”
Then his personnel history appeared. “His background is fabricated.” Natasha stared at her. “Not altered?”
“Built. Some records are more than ten years old. Medical history, education, travel. Someone created an identity designed to survive federal screening long before he applied.” Weeks of training rearranged themselves in Natasha’s head.. Reeves’s mistakes..his temper, his willingness to accept correction.. None of it had looked suspicious.
“How certain?”
“Ninety percent before tonight.”
Natasha’s eyes narrowed. “Before?” One of the analysts brought up a hidden directory from Reeves’s training tablet. “We imaged the device during routine synchronization after today’s exercise. He created a concealed partition beneath the training environment and used it to stage outbound packets through S.H.I.E.L.D. maintenance traffic.”
“What was he sending?”
“Most of it is still encrypted, but we recovered fragments.”
Training schedules appeared, arena system identifiers and the final team roster. Natasha saw your name and something violent moved through her chest. “He sent them the team.”
“Two hours after selection.”
The display changed once more and a code appears. “We also found sections matching the arena payload.”
Reeves had sabotaged the arena..he had known the weapons could turn on twenty-one recruits. He had stood beside all of you afterward while Dawson bled and had trained with Maya, laughed with Lu and allowed Natasha to correct him as if he were exactly what he pretended to be..All the while, he belonged to Vesper.
Natasha gripped the edge of the table. “Where is he?”
Hill did not answer immediately and Natasha noticed. “Maria.”
“When we opened the hidden partition, it triggered an integrity monitor. Reeves built a tripwire into the storage layer. External access generated a short encrypted heartbeat to a dead drop.” Fury’s expression hardened. “You sent it?!”
“Automatically. The forensic image triggered it before we identified the monitor..”
Natasha felt cold spread through her. “How long ago?”
“Six minutes.” The room changed instantly. “He knows.”
“At minimum.” Hill said, “he knows someone accessed something that should never have been found.” Hayes moved away from the wall.
“Lock his credentials.”
“No.” Natasha looked at Hill. “If you revoke them now, he knows for certain.”
“We haven’t.”
Fury was already moving toward the door. “Containment?”
“Two teams are entering the residential level without alarm.” Natasha’s mind jumped somewhere else entirely. Friday..recovery day tomorrow. Dinner at eight. Natasha looked at the clock. 21:38 and her face drained of color. “Where are the recruits?” Hill understood immediately and pulled up the internal location system.
A cluster of signals appeared on the residential level and Natasha found yours first. Then Lu, Maya, Carter; Nguyen and only a few meters away..Reeves.
The common-room camera appeared on the screen. A long table was covered in half-finished food, soda bottles and takeaway containers. Selected and unselected recruits crowded around it together. Lu was talking with both hands and Maya was laughing. You sat near the middle of the table, turned slightly toward Carter. Across from you, Reeves looked completely relaxed. He smiled at something Nguyen said and Natasha stared at him. For months, she had watched him fight, she knew how quickly he moved and how strong he was. Now every weakness she had ever seen might have been deliberate. Every weapon she had trained him to use had been placed in the hands of someone who had already known exactly how to kill..
Then Reeves’s phone vibrated, he glanced down and the smile disappeared. His eyes lifted slowly across the table, although you had no idea why, you looked at him and Natasha’s blood turned to ice.
“He knows.” She was already running before anyone answered.
Someone had pushed two tables together and cartons of food covered almost every surface and the loaf of bread Carter had insisted on buying outside the compound was already half gone. All eleven remaining recruits were there. Selected and unselected sat together without anyone caring which side of the final list they had landed on. Tomorrow was recovery day, Natasha had forbidden everyone from entering a training room until Sunday morning and for a few hours there was nothing left to qualify for.
Lu had interpreted that as permission to become unbearable. “I’m just saying!” she announced, pointing a piece of bread at you, “if Romanoff gets injured and you take command, technically everyone has to listen to you.”
“During an operation.” Maya smiled beside you. “She’s going to become insufferable.”
“I’m already sitting here.”
“That has never stopped us.”
You rolled your eyes, but you were smiling. It had become easier during the last week. Not around Natasha, never for long, but around everyone else the constant pressure had loosened enough for something almost normal to return. Carter and Nguyen were arguing over which of them had performed worse during resistance training. Peterson, reassigned from the mission team but still finishing the program, insisted Natasha had personally invented half the interrogation exercises because she disliked him. Reeves sat opposite you, laughing while Lu informed him that surviving Nightglass would not absolve him of nearly dislocating your shoulder weeks earlier.
“It was a drill..” Reeves said. “You have been tried and convicted.”
“By what court?” Lu waved toward the table. “This one.”
Reeves shook his head and reached for the bread. A serrated knife lay on the cutting board between the plates. Nobody had thought twice about it, because for the last hour, it had been nothing except a bread knife. Reeves sliced himself another piece and set it down. You looked down at your drink. “Apparently I make excellent decisions under pressure.”
Maya bumped your shoulder. “You deserved it.” The sincerity made you look at her, because Maya never said things because she thought you wanted to hear them. “Thanks..”
Across from you, Reeves’s phone vibrated and nobody topped talking. He glanced down with half a smile still on his face..till the smile disappeared. His thumb moved across the screen before he placed the phone facedown beside his plate and Carter reached across him for a bottle. “Everything good?”
“Yeah.” Reeves looked toward the common-room entrance and then the emergency door beside the kitchenette. Then back at his phone. “Reeves?” His eyes met yours and something had changed. You stood and Maya noticed immediately. “What?”
Reeves moved first and grabbed the edge of the nearest table and shoved. The entire thing slammed sideways with enough force to send plates, bottles and food crashing onto the floor. Peterson and Carter stumbled backward as the table struck them and for one confused second everyone shouted at once. Reeves used it and reached the kitchenette. His hand closed around the bread knife and you understood instantly. “Knife!”
The room changed and training took over, but the space worked against you. Too many people, too much furniture, half the room blocked by the overturned table. Reeves wasn’t coming toward anyone, he was heading for the emergency exit. Nguyen reached him first and grabbed his wrist, but Reeves slashed without hesitation. The blade opened Nguyen’s forearm and he swore and lost his grip. Peterson caught Reeves around the waist while Carter hit him from the other side, driving him into the counter hard enough to rattle the cabinets.
For a second, it looked finished..three trained agents had him pinned and his knife arm was trapped. Then someone shouted about Nguyen’s bleeding and Lu moved toward him. Two recruits dragged the fallen table away to clear space and everyone’s attention divided. That was all Reeves needed. He drove his heel into Peterson’s foot and snapped his head backward into Carter’s face. Carter stumbled away with blood pouring from his nose. Peterson held on until Reeves slashed across his shoulder and forced him loose.
You and Maya reached him together and you hit Reeves from the blind side and drove him back into the counter. Maya caught his knife wrist with both hands while you locked his free arm behind him. “Drop it!”
Reeves strained against you, Carter recovered and came back. There was nowhere for him to go and Reeves seemed to understand it too. He stopped fighting for half a second, but then he threw his weight backward, exactly the movement you expected. You adjusted, but he reversed instantly. The sudden change pulled you half a step forward and Maya stayed attached to his wrist. Reeves turned sharply between you and the knife moved. Everything stopped and you didn’t understand until she released him. Reeves pulled the blade free from beneath her ribs and blood shone along the metal. “Maya?”
She looked down and her expression went strangely blank, as if her brain couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing. Then her knees folded and you caught her before her head struck the floor. “No. No, no-”
Blood spread rapidly beneath your hands and Lu dropped beside you. “Pressure!” you said. “Here. Press here!” Lu immediately replaced your hands with hers and Maya made a small, broken sound. “I know..” Lu whispered. “I’ve got you.”
Behind you, Reeves ran again. Carter and Peterson intercepted him before he reached the door. Carter caught him high around the shoulders while Peterson went for the knife arm. Even Nguyen, one hand clamped over his bleeding forearm, kicked Reeves behind the knee and he hit the floor and the knife skidded away.
You should have stayed beside Maya..but you stood. “Y/N!” Lu’s voice barely reached you. Reeves was on one knee, Carter trying to force him flat while Peterson reached for the knife. You crossed the distance before anyone could stop you and fist struck Reeves across the mouth. His head snapped sideways and Carter shouted something, but you grabbed Reeves by the front of his shirt. “You did this!” Blood ran from Reeves’s lip, but smiled.
“Why did you do this?!”
“Y/N, back up!”
Carter reached for you and that was the mistake. Three bodies shifted at once and Reeves twisted beneath Carter, shoved him into you and reached blindly across the floor. His fingers closed around the knife and you saw it too late. The blade entered your lower side and at first there was no pain, just pressure pressure. You looked down and Reeves ripped the knife free. You stumbled backward, one hand immediately covering the wound. Carter hit Reeves again and Peterson caught his wrist, but you barely heard any of it.
“Maya…” You turned and she was still on the floor. You tried to take a step toward her and nearly collapsed. Reeves had stopped trying to reach the doors, maybe because he finally understood there was nowhere left to run and escape had stopped mattering. His eyes found you and he moved. He was coming toward you with the knife and you body tried to react, but wasn’t fast enough. You backed into the edge of the table and pain exploded through your side. Your knees hit the floor and Reeves reached you.
Then the common-room door opened, but you barely registered it. Natasha entered first with her weapon already raised and saw Reeves standing over you with the knife in his hand and fired once. The shot cracked through the room and Reeves jerked and collapsed sideways. Containment agents flooded the room behind Natasha and someone pulled Reeves away and others shouted for medical teams and began separating everyone from the scene. You barely heard them and looked down.
Blood covered your palm. It ran between your fingers and soaked through your shirt. When you shifted, you felt warmth beneath you. You knew enough medicine to understand what that meant. “No…”
You had spent months learning what bullets did to bodies, what knives did, how quickly blood loss could turn somebody from conscious to confused to dead. Natasha had made all of you practice treating wounds until your hands moved without thought.
But knowing did absolutely nothing to stop the terror. Another hot rush spread beneath you and your eyes widened. There was blood underneath you now, you could feel it soaking through your shirt, warm against your skin before cooling against the floor beneath your hip. A broken sound escaped you, because you wanted your mother. The thought appeared without warning and nearly destroyed you..suddenly you were six years old again and terrified and there was blood everywhere and you wanted your mother. Your eyes burned, but you couldn’t cry. Crying meant breathing wrong..breathing wrong meant- “Y/N!”
Your head lifted and relief hit so hard it almost hurt more. She crossed the room and dropped to her knees in front of you. “Hey. Look at me.”
Her hands moved over your shoulders and face, checking for injuries she couldn’t yet see. “I’m here.”
You swallowed shakily. “Nat…”
“I know. I’ve got you.”
Then Natasha saw the blood and her eyes dropped to your hand, your shirt, the dark red spreading beneath you. For one terrible second, she froze. “Okay.” she said, though her voice had changed. “I need to see the wound.”
You curled tighter around yourself. “No..”
“Y/n. I need to see where he got you.”
“It hurts.”
“I know.” She reached carefully toward your hand and you flinched. “Look at me. I’m not going to hurt you more than I have to.”
Your eyes filled. “I don’t want you to move it..” You stared at her, terrified, but then slowly let her move your hand and Natasha saw the wound. You searched her expression and you knew..Natasha tore off her jacket and folded it quickly, the second you understood what she intended to do, panic flashed through you. “No!”
“I have to put pressure on it.”
“W-Wait.”
“I’m sorry.”
She pressed the jacket against your side and you screamed. “Medic!” Natasha shouted over her shoulder. “Now!” Then her attention snapped back to you. “Y/n, look at me.”
Your vision had started to blur. “Look at me.”
“I am.”
“No. Stay with me.” Her hands were covered in your blood and you looked down. Natasha caught it immediately. “Don’t look at that.”
“I’m tired.” Fear flashed across her face. “No.”
“Nat…”
“No. Stay awake, please..“
Your eyelids fluttered and Natasha shifted closer. “Y/n.” You forced them open again. “Good. Stay with me.” But your eyes closed again and Natasha tapped your cheek. You really tried, but everything felt unbearably heavy now. The ceiling tilted somewhere above Natasha’s head and you could feel her hand tightened around yours. “Y/n!” But your body had already made the decision for you and everything went black.
Please excuse my grammar. English is not my first language.
Imagine this:
Natasha Romanoff hired you as her personal servant. You do everything she tells you to do, because, of course, she's paying for your services, and she made that pretty clear by the end of your first season.
You were making him breakfast. Silence reigns in the house. You've gotten used to it by now. You stir the egg you're cooking over medium heat, when in the next second you hold your breath. For a moment you think you're dreaming, that the hands you feel on your legs are just your own hallucinations, until: "Good morning," he greets you, his voice raspy, warm, and whispering. You don't move. She smiles at your impassive expression. Her fingers travel up your thighs, barely touching your skin with their tips. Goosebumps rise all over your body.
"M-ma'am. Wh-what are you doing?" you stammer. His fingers move to the inside of your thighs, and you instinctively close your legs. Natasha clicks her tongue before telling you:
"Be a polite servant and open your legs for me". She presses her fingers into your plump flesh and pulls. You remain rigid, which ends up annoying her. "I hired you to serve me. To obey and fulfill my orders. Wasn't that clear when we talked about it?"
You swallow hard. You don't remember having that conversation.
"Let me remind you. You were hired to serve me, to feed me, and to keep my home, my office, and even my cock clean if I order you to."
The abrupt, shameless, and frank way he provoked you. The sensation of compressing nothingness took you by surprise, and on top of that, the flow coming out of you. You pressed your thighs together in response to your body's unconscious reaction. Natasha smiled mockingly. She doesn't need to find out, but she wants to.
"Open," he demands, tapping your left thigh. You swallow again; you know there are no other options.
You slowly spread your legs, trying to relax. "That's it, relax and let me inspect that pretty pussy". With a touch of boldness and surprise, he grabs your left leg and rests it on the bar. You gasp at his swift action. "Stay still", he whispers, and you nod quickly. The tips of her fingers trace the inside of your thigh again, but this time it's only the one you're holding up, while the other hand holds your waist.
She sniffs your hair in time with his hand moving upward. Slow, detailed, and gentle. The smile that spreads across his face is due to your breathing. That simple action tells him how you feel. Overwhelmed, ashamed, and afraid. He has you exactly how he likes it. Exactly how he wants it.
A high-pitched moan escapes your lips as his fingers barely trace the fabric of your panties. He feels the wetness and warmth of your area.
"I bet you can feel it dripping out of you", you say, holding your breath. That's more than enough of an answer for her.
His right hand goes to your loose hair to move it to the side, then moves it to your side after exposing your skin. He lowers his hand until it rests on your waist again while his other hand is busy dragging his fingers over your panties and his lips make contact with the skin of your neck.
A wet kiss.
You closed your eyes during the act. Your body feels like it's exploding all over. Your mind seems to short-circuit at his touches, trying to focus on the sensation of each hand and his kisses.
"Madam!" escapes you with such pleasure. Natasha brings her lips to the back of your ear and licks it. Your only firm knee buckles slightly. You hear her laugh; low, amused, confident. Her fingers pull aside her panties and the air hits you. Cold.
"My lady", he corrects. He presses your button with his middle finger. You moan again. "You're so warm and disastrous. Just as I thought", he confesses. He circles your clit and it's impossible for you not to squirm. "Look at you. I knew you'd let me feel you this wet. To let me open you up like the whore you are. To give me the pleasure of hearing you moan and call me Your Lady." Your breathing is ragged, as is your body, seeking more contact with his fingers. "God, I knew it from the beginning". Surround your hole with the fingertips and you yearn for it to enter.
With his tongue he draws your earlobe and sucks just as his fingers enter you, your legs weaken and you hold onto the cupboard while you agree, while you're getting like you on golden platter when you moan "My lady".
You belong to her, and that will never end. She makes sure of that.
