Things were good. Really good at least in Natasha’s opinion. Even if she wouldn’t admit it, it was fun to play house. To live like this as though they were a normal, everyday couple and everything that had happened before hadn’t. It was easy, until she saw that look in his eyes until he went to get serious and then it wasn’t. But she had ways to handle that, her favorite way was with a kiss, deep and long which led to making him forget at least for a while.
She even took him sightseeing, day trips here and there. Took him to the ballet, let him see her tears at the tragic end of Swan Lake. She had let him in and yet at the same time she was also keeping him away. She was afraid of going to Wakanda, of facing the people there of facing her past. She’d much rather stay here and what was the harm in that? They were untouchable here at least by the US. But she knew he missed those he had left behind to come here. In truth so did she. They had become family, the only one she had ever truly known. But still that didn’t decimate her fear. If anything it made it worse.
So she did everything she could to distract Pietro, to avoid the conversation she knew he wanted to have. But deep down she knew it wasn’t going to work forever, he was just as stubborn and determined as she was. Perhaps even a little bit more, not that she would ever admit that.
The sound of rain pattering against the window was relaxing, lulling her to a relaxed state of sleep. But she was aware. Aware of the warm body next to her, aware of when he moved even with her eyes closed and her mind blissfully dark. It was always an anomaly to her how not sleeping alone helped keep her nightmares at bay but it did, perhaps it made her feel safer, secure, she didn’t know and she wasn’t going to question it.
She shifted a bit, down into the bed more and closer to him, content with how the past few weeks, or however long it had gone, probably around a month, maybe a little more she’d guess given her hair had grown back, one of the annoying side effects about being biochemically enhanced.