A/N: Welcome to my first series! This one will be three parts.
Part 1 of “The Camgirl Next Door” | Series Masterlist
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Truthfully, you don’t remember exactly how it started.
One day, you had inadvertently come across the account of one “Scarlet Witch” on some stereotypical camgirl website and ever since then, you’d found yourself tuned in for every show.
But there was nothing stereotypical about Scarlet Witch herself.
For starters, she was absolutely breathtaking from head to toe, and god, you had seen it all. But she wasn’t just a pretty face - and a pretty body of course - she was so much more.
She never came across as solely performative. Sure, she put on a great show, but it never seemed forced and she was beyond adorable when interacting with her subscribers. It sounded rather silly to say about someone you’d never met, who also did this for a living, but she always seemed genuine.
You’d learned her name was Wanda. She was Sokovian and sometimes her accent came out when she was completely lost in her pleasure, her voice low and raspy. Certain compliments made her blush and when she laughed, her body shook as if she couldn’t contain it.
Everything about her drew you in from that very first show you’d curiously decided to watch. You simply couldn’t get enough of her.
After an especially tough day at work, you were looking forward only to Wanda’s show. You made it home just in time to hastily put together a quick dinner and take a shower before Wanda’s stream started.
Once comfortable in bed, you pulled up her account on your laptop and scrolled on your phone while waiting for the show to start. When Wanda’s endearing nose scrunch graced your screen, your phone was swiftly discarded, your eyes glued to her like always.
“Hi everyone,” she said, sitting on her bed in a black silk robe, hints of red lingerie peeking out through the loosely tied front. She began reading her chat comments as per usual and responding to the warm welcomes.
You sent a greeting with a tip and felt your whole body flush when she responded sweetly to your message.
“Thank you WitchsGirl! I hope you had a beautiful day yourself.”
Even the way she said your username had you practically swooning and you imagined how your real name would sound in that voice you adored so much, sweet like honey but far from innocent.
As the show went on, you sent her a few more tips, one to encourage her to take some clothing off, another to see her edge herself.
You ignored the part of you that knew the real reason you were so generous with your tips was not for your own viewing pleasure. At the end of the day, you wanted her to feel appreciated. And if a small dollar amount could make her smile on a particularly rough day or help her buy that one thing she really wanted, you’d give in every time.
Not to mention, she was amazing at what she did.
Watching her touch herself, listening to her moans, seeing those long, pretty fingers stretch herself out - it made you feel hot all over. It also made your imagination run wild. You wanted badly to be the one getting those reactions out of her.
You thought about her far more than you should’ve, wondering how she liked to be fucked when she was with a partner, how loud she could really get, what positions were her favorites, the list was endless.
And every time you sat there and watched her rub her clit in tight circles, her glistening cunt on full display, juices dripping down her thighs, you couldn’t help but wonder so much about how she would taste.
Would she be sweet, or tangy, or both? Would she let you tease her until she was desperate, or would she grab you by your hair and fuck your face until she was satisfied?
As your mind spun with the possibilities, you were drawn back to the present by the sight of her coming undone on your screen.
She looked like a work of art when she came, with her eyebrows furrowed so cutely, eyes squeezed shut, and her mouth hung open in pure pleasure.
The whimpers that left her mouth made you uncomfortably wet and it wasn’t uncommon for you to join her, getting yourself off to the sights and sounds only her show could give you.
You felt a twinge of sadness as she began to say her goodbyes for the night, but you’d see her again in a couple days and you couldn’t wait.
You became especially excited for the next show when she teased that she’d be using toys, blowing a kiss to the camera before ending the stream.
Despite the long and frustrating day you’d had, you fell asleep with a smile on your face and hoped your dreams would be filled with Wanda.
The day of her next show caught up with you before you knew it.
Work was busy, but the good kind of busy, and you arrived home so pleasantly tired each night that sleep came easily.
It was your day off and you were making your morning coffee when you heard some commotion outside. Out of curiosity, since you did live in a rather quiet apartment complex, you decided to see what was going on.
When you opened the door, you gasped at what you saw.
There she was - Wanda, Scarlet Witch, your guilty pleasure - moving boxes into the unit next door.
You couldn’t believe your own eyes. The woman you fantasized about regularly, who had no idea who you were, was… your new neighbor?
A thousand thoughts took over your mind, none of them helpful as she noticed your presence.
She’s even prettier in real life. I’m dreaming, aren’t I? Is she moving in? Oh god, how will I even act around her? Maybe she’s helping someone else move. Maybe she’s not. Her hair looks so soft. And her eyes… they’re the perfect shade of green. Her eyes that are looking directly at me, oh fuck.
“Hi, do you live here?” she asked cheerily, setting down the boxes she was holding.
“Uh, y-yeah… yes, I do.” You wanted to slap yourself for being such a nervous wreck in front of her. “Are you moving in?”
“Yes! Just signed a one-year lease,” she said, before shaking her head. “Sorry, my name’s Wanda.”
She held out her hand for you to shake, the same hand you watched her pleasure herself with twice a week, but you tried not to think about that.
“Nice to meet you, I’m Y/N,” you replied, awkwardly returning the gesture and feeling yourself flush as your hands touched for the first time. “Do you, um, need any help?”
“No, it’s okay! I’m just bringing up some of the important stuff and I have movers helping with the rest, but thank you,” she beamed, appearing truly grateful for the offer.
Doing your best not to let there be an uncomfortable silence, you came up with a friendly response.
“Well, if you need any help, let me know. Or if you have any questions about the place. Anything really!” You rubbed the back of your neck, trying to physically force the nerves out of your body. “You know where I live, so…”
“Right, thank you. I appreciate it,” she smiled. “See you around, Y/N.”
And with that she was collecting her boxes again to take them inside her apartment.
You rushed back inside your own apartment, finally letting out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.
See you around, Y/N.
The way your name rolled off her tongue had a smile making its way onto your face, but the other half of her sentence filled you with dread.
See you around. You would be seeing her, she was your neighbor now. You’d barely survived brief introductions with her and you knew this wasn’t the last time you’d have to interact with her.
You were torn between pure joy and crippling anxiety.
And guilt.
You felt waves of guilt hit you as reality settled in. Wanda had seemed so excited to have met her neighbor, someone kind and willing to help. She had no idea you knew her already, and quite intimately at that. You’d seen her fully exposed, you were familiar with how she liked to touch herself, you knew what her face looked like when she was denied an orgasm, and also when she had one. And she was completely unaware of it.
The guilt drove you to miss her show that night.
You couldn’t bring yourself to watch, knowing she was filming it next door, especially knowing that in her mind, you were probably watching television or reading a book to relax for the night, not watching her masturbate on camera.
It didn’t even occur to you that she might’ve been thinking of you that night, her attractive new neighbor, as she clenched around her favorite toy in front of her viewers.
You opted out of tuning in for the next few weeks.
During this time, Wanda had actually taken you up on your offer and had come knocking on your door with questions about the complex.
She tried not to feel bad about bothering you, not when your face lit up every time she stopped by.
Not even when she considered she might just be coming up with things to be confused about so she would have an excuse to talk to you.
You certainly didn’t mind helping her, in fact, those brief moments were the new highlights of many of your days.
The more you saw her, the more you were motivated to stay away from her online activities. Being around her felt way too good for you to mess it up by watching her shows and letting the guilt gnaw away at you piece by piece.
Some nights, you swore you could hear her performances through the apartment walls. With red tinting your cheeks and heat pooling between your legs, you’d put on music to drown out any faint sounds that might make their way over.
It seemed that Wanda wasn’t seeing anyone, which gave you hope. She rarely had people over and the few times you’d run into each other on your way out, she mentioned she was going to see her brother or her best friend, Monica.
You wanted to do this right, despite the occasional nagging feeling that you were lying to her, or at least omitting the truth.
You felt especially bad when you had to feign interest in her work, asking her what she did for a living as if you didn’t already know. She responded saying something about online networking and you bit your lip to hide your smile at her cover.
You knew you were crushing hard, so you tried to live your lie. As much as you really wanted to at times, you didn’t let yourself give into temptation. You didn’t watch her shows.
Until one night, when you received an unexpected email notification.
It was a link for an “exclusive” Scarlet Witch livestream. It wasn’t one of her normal show nights and that piqued your interest.
The email said she would be doing something extra special to give back to the most devoted of her viewers. Your curiosity outweighed your conscience, and you found yourself back on the website you thought you’d left behind.
When she appeared on screen, you felt a mix of guilt and excitement. You had missed seeing her like this, but it also felt wrong and you tried to push that feeling down and just focus on her.
She went through her introductions, saying hello and thank you to viewers as they joined and chatted and sent small tips. You didn’t want to seem cold, knowing you were usually one of her best tippers, so you went against your better judgment and sent in a greeting and a tip as well.
“Welcome back, WitchsGirl, I’ve missed you darling. And thank you for the generous tip,” Wanda said into the camera, flashing a smile. You felt as though you could melt right then and there. She’d noticed your absence all this time and you briefly wondered if just disappearing like that was a dick move; you hadn’t even considered that she would notice, let alone miss you.
Your thoughts were interrupted by Wanda’s voice over the stream.
“So tonight’s show is gonna be a little different,” she started. “I would like to make a private custom video for my highest tipper. Whoever it ends up being, just private message me what you’d like to see in your video and I’ll make your dreams come true.”
Your jaw dropped. A custom video, just for you, for your eyes only.
You didn’t know if it was the overwhelming desire to see her in a way no one else would get to or if it was the jealousy that consumed you at the thought of someone else getting that chance instead, but your mind was already made up.
You knew it was wrong, but you simply couldn’t pass up an opportunity like this.
You started out tipping slowly in smaller amounts, just to keep up with some of the other viewers. But at the end of the show, when she was about to call it, you sent in the highest tip of the night, securing the prize as your own.
“Wow, thank you WitchsGirl, looks like I’ll be making something very special for you!” she exclaimed with a shocked expression on her face, followed by a suggestive smile.
Your heart was beating fast in your chest, and it only worsened when you received a message from her after the livestream had ended.
Let me know what you’d like to see in your video, sweetheart <3
You blushed at the pet name, even though you knew she was really saying it to the anonymous “WitchsGirl” and not to you directly.
You thought long and hard about what you wanted to request, and then it came to you. You remembered seeing something on a website one time - a sizable dark red dildo with a clit-sucking vibrator to match - and thinking of her, Scarlet Witch.
Is it possible for me to buy you something to use for the video?
You nervously pressed send and waited for her response, which came surprisingly fast.
That’s so sweet, I would love that. Just use the “send a gift” link on my page.
You followed the link and purchased the items, smiling to yourself as you imagined her reaction. Would she think it was thoughtful? Would she like the symbolism?
Before you could get too wrapped up in your own thoughts, you decided to message her back.
Ordered, expedited shipping. I hope you enjoy pretty girl.
That night, you fell asleep to thoughts of Wanda, filming something just for you, using the toys you picked out for her to pleasure herself.
Two days later, Wanda received a package.
She knew it was her gift for the video since she wasn’t expecting anything else and she almost couldn’t contain her excitement.
She opened the package enthusiastically and gasped when she saw its contents. She picked up the large silicone cock first, mouth agape not only at the length and girth, but at the deep red color of it. She loved that it was a matching set. She focused her attention on the vibrator next, making a mental note to make sure she charged it or put in batteries, whichever was required.
She set the items down to dispose of the packaging when she noticed something odd. There was a name on the package that wasn’t hers.
It was yours.
She frowned in confusion. Why would your name be on her package? Her mind raced with possible explanations, but she only landed on one that made sense.
But you couldn’t be WitchsGirl, could you?
Sure, she’d caught your eyes lingering on her before and sometimes she wondered if you liked her in more than just a friendly way, but until now she’d assumed it was pretty innocent.
Then she thought about how one of her best and most adoring viewers had disappeared for weeks, ever since… the day she met you.
Oh. It really was you.
Upon this realization, she knew exactly what she had to do.
Later that night, you settled into bed with a cup of tea and a new episode of your favorite show on Hulu waiting for you.
You were about to put it on when your phone chimed with a notification, which you might’ve ignored if the “Scarlet Witch” in the preview didn’t catch your eye.
You opened it up and felt your body heat up at the thumbnail of the video link attached. Any thoughts of doing anything else went out the window and you were already opening the link, ready to see Wanda using the toys you’d bought for her.
A sultry “hi baby” was the first thing you heard when you pressed play and it sent a shock of arousal straight to your core.
You bit your lip at the sight of Wanda sitting atop her bed in nothing but a lacy set of black lingerie, with two maroon-colored items in front of her. You were certain if you could see yourself in that moment, you’d be as red as her new toys.
“Thank you for these, I love them,” she said, running her hands along her thighs. “I can’t wait to fill myself up with this one.” She ran her fingertips along the thick dildo, then moved them to the vibrator, picking it up. “And this one… I bet it’s gonna feel so good on my clit.”
She bit her lip and you knew you were a goner, already clenching your thighs together.
She took off her bra and cupped her breasts, massaging them as she looked into the camera. If you were being honest, it felt more like she was looking into your soul. She pinched and teased straining pink nipples, letting out affected breaths as she worked herself up.
“If you were here, I’d have you suck on them. Just the thought is making me so wet.”
God. You’d heard her talk dirty before, but never to you and you only. You tried to control your breathing as you kept watching.
She teased herself over her panties, stroking her fingers along the front of them before pulling them to the side and exposing her bare pussy. You could tell she was wet from the way the light hit her slick folds and you practically drooled.
She covered herself once more, much to your dismay, but you couldn’t complain when she was hooking her fingers in the top of her panties and pulling them down.
She spread her legs for you, using one hand to spread herself open and give you a better view of her dripping center.
Wanda lazily touched herself for a minute, stroking her clit and dipping her fingers inside of herself, before she moved her hand to her mouth and sucked her digits clean.
“Mmm, I bet you want a taste too, don’t you sweetheart?”
Yes. Please. You wanted to plead out loud as if you weren’t watching a prerecorded video. It almost felt cruel for her to tease you with the prospect of something you’d wanted for so long.
She reached for the vibrator first and turned it on at a low setting. She swiped it through her folds before pressing the suction part to her clit and letting out a shaky moan. “Fuck, this was such a good gift detka.”
You throbbed at her words, especially the term of endearment. You’d never heard her say it on any of her streams before, you weren’t even really sure what it meant, but it aroused you to no end.
She increased the vibrations and started letting out desperate, needy moans, her hips beginning to buck into the toy. She looked like an absolute meal, spread out for you, as she humped against the item you gifted her.
Her eyes were fluttering shut despite her trying to maintain eye contact with the camera and you could tell she was getting close already. Watching her let go and lose herself in her pleasure without the pressure of tippers begging for her to edge or telling her what they wanted to see was heavenly.
“Oh, fuck, do you want-” she cut herself off with a whimper. “Do you want to see me cum like this?” She panted as she spoke, her eyes shut tightly as she teetered on the edge.
You wished you could respond and tell her yes, you wanted to watch her fall apart just like that.
As if she could hear your thoughts, she kept the toy latched onto her sensitive clit until she was crying out. Her body shook as she hit her peak, her hips nearly lifting off the mattress. You were certain you’d soaked through your own underwear at the sight of her riding out her orgasm against the vibrator in her hand, her head thrown back and her face contorted in pleasure.
“God,” she breathed out as she came down from her high. “I’m definitely using this again. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to put it down after that.”
She laughed breathily at her own comment, but your gaze was fixed on the space between her legs, where a string of her juices hung between the toy and her messy pussy. You wished you were there to collect it into your mouth.
“I think I’m wet enough for this one now, hm?” Her words brought you out of your trance and you watched as she replaced the vibrator in her hand with the large dildo you had almost forgotten about.
She brought it up to her lips, sucking on the head for a moment, and then moved it lower. She dragged it through her folds, coating the length of the toy with her arousal. You cursed under your breath - you didn’t think you’d ever seen her this wet.
She teased her entrance with the head of the fake cock, dipping it inside before pulling out again. You looked at her face, almost choking at the sinful gaze she was giving the camera, green eyes dark with lust.
Wanda groaned as she finally pushed the toy inside her aching center, her walls fluttering around the welcome intrusion. Your thighs pressed together tightly at the view of her filling herself to the brim, her chest heaving.
“Fuck, I’ve never been so full,” she whined, adjusting to the size. “It’s so big, you’re filling me up so good.”
You audibly moaned at that, beginning to think that if she kept talking to you that way you’d fall apart without even being touched.
She began slowly pumping the toy in and out of her tight hole, moaning each time it disappeared inside her cunt. You could hear how wet she was, sloshing sounds reaching your ears with every thrust.
“Shit, that feels so good, so fucking good,” she breathed out, increasing her pace. “Maybe next time I’ll ride it for you, would you like that?”
Your heart nearly stopped at her words. Next time?
“Mmm, god, you know what I’m thinking about? You, wearing this, fucking me with it,” she panted out. “Do you want to fuck me slow and edge me all night? Or would you fuck me fast and rough and make me cum?” As she spoke, she began to thrust the toy with more force, her free hand gripping the sheets desperately.
The thought of using the toy on her made you dizzy with lust. You imagined kissing her neck as you pounded into her or laying back as she bounced in your lap, making you beg to touch her.
“I’m so close, detka, oh!” Her eyes slammed shut as the tight coil inside her became almost unbearable. “Fuck, Y/N, right there, I’m-”
Before she could finish her sentence, she came, hard.
She spasmed against the bed, her thighs seeming unsure if they wanted to close or stay open with how violently they twitched. Her moans came out broken, her mouth hung open in a silent scream.
She gushed around the toy, cum spilling out with each thrust as she slowed down her movements.
You felt like the luckiest person on the planet. You were insanely turned on by what you were seeing and hearing through your screen. She looked beautiful in the throes of pleasure, and the way she moaned your name as she hit her peak did unspeakable things to you.
The way she moaned your name.
You hazily registered that she’d cried out your actual name, not your username, but you were distracted as she spoke again.
“That was… fuck,” she said, breathing heavily and attempting to sit up straight. “Thank you for these. I hope you enjoyed your gift as much as I enjoyed mine.” She had a goofy, blissed out smile on her face and you couldn’t help but smile back.
“Goodnight, detka, I’ll be seeing you.”
She ended the video there and everything that had just happened played over in your mind. How were you ever supposed to act normal around her again after this?
Not only that, but she’d moaned your name when she came undone. Was that an accident? Was she thinking about the real you while she touched herself and it just slipped out? Or did she somehow know that the person she was making that for was you?
No, there was no way she could know that.
You mulled it over for a while and decided to sleep on it. Your mind was running in circles and you were exhausted. On top of that, you were still extremely sexually frustrated.
You tossed and turned, attempting to ignore your nagging thoughts brought on by the night’s events. Eventually, you did fall asleep, your exhaustion finally taking over your impeccable ability to overthink.
The next morning, you woke up later than usual, deciding to make breakfast instead of coffee since you overslept.
Spending time in the kitchen with some music in the background kept your mind off of things - thank god, you weren’t quite ready to deal with reality just yet - but a knock at the door interrupted the moment.
You weren’t sure who you were expecting to see, but it certainly wasn’t Wanda, looking adorable as ever in a skirt and black thigh-highs.
“Hi,” you managed, nerves kicking in.
“Hey,” she said, looking at you sweetly with those hypnotizing green eyes. “Sorry if this is weird but I was wondering if you had any honey? I just made some tea and I didn’t realize I ran out of honey…”
“Uh, yeah, I think I do,” you responded, stepping back from the doorway. “You can come in while I look.”
“Sure, thank you.”
You went back to the kitchen, Wanda trailing behind, and began to search the cabinets for wherever you might’ve left it.
“If you don’t have any, that’s fine too,” she said softly.
As you looked around, you didn’t notice Wanda coming further into the kitchen, where she leaned against the counter and looked at you with a smirk on her face.
You located the honey, but the next words out of Wanda’s mouth made your heart stop and the bottle fall from your grasp.
Can I get a short Nat x Reader blurb of Reader coming back from a mission to find Natasha in her room sleeping on her bed cause she missed her? (Fluffy ending please?)
May your life being going well and your health is doing great! Sending love! 🤍
Meet Me In The Afterglow
Natasha Romanoff x Reader
Word Count: 650
A/N: Thank you very much for the prompt! It has a happy ending, but maybe more hurt/comfort in theme.
It was one of those fights. Loud, messy and explosive like nothing ever should be.
Natasha’s voice had been raised from the start. A thousand passive aggressive moments barreling into one awful crescendo.
Anger and tears had blurred together as you argued back just as loudly. Pointing out your side of the hurt.
She said you didn’t care enough.
You said she was never there to notice.
She scoffed and you swore.
Natasha told you that you were exhausting her and you let the hurt settle into your bones.
You pretended it wasn’t about the fact her last mission had been hellish.
You promised with cutting finality to move out of the apartment after your next mission.
---
Natasha’s mouth had slammed shut. Her face had grown paler, a startled look falling on her face. After a moment, you’d watched her swallow a lump in a throat, nod once and leave for the bedroom.
She didn’t speak to you in the few hours that followed.
You only shared the space once before she left; when she crossed the room on her way to the bathroom. Her red hair tied back tightly, her tiredness making her face look drawn. Her eyes trained resolutely on the door that she was heading towards. Tension emanated from her. You were too frustrated to care.
She did not say goodbye before your mission. Neither did you.
—-
The mission was exhausting, mentally and physically.
You hiked behind Agent Hill for three hours in relentless silence. You had plenty of time to ruminate on everything you'd said, on the threat you'd made.
You ended up thinking more about Natasha.
The kiss she’d left on your forehead before her last mission.
The emphatic sad face emoticons that accompanied her texts whenever she had to cancel plans.
The awful sound of her crying in the bathroom the night before, thinking you were asleep.
The first time she’d held your hand. The fragility in her warmest gratitude.
---
A day later, you did the same three hour trek back in barely two hours.
You couldn't undo the things you said. But, you could try your best to make it right.
Your heart pounded with exertion and the need to be home.
The apartment was eerily quiet when you arrived back at last. You checked for Natasha's keys by the door, sagging with heavy relief that she hadn’t enacted your threat to leave herself.
You wandered the apartment worriedly, desperate to see her and afraid of the stakes of getting this wrong.
Empty Chinese takeout containers sat on the coffee table, another reassurance that Natasha was likely here, somewhere. You continued your search.
At last, you headed to your bedroom.
The door was already cracked open and you pushed it slowly, letting it creak as it moved open.
Natasha was lying in your bed. She didn't look up at the sound of the door.
Pieces of you cracked away at the sight of her.
She was wearing your t-shirt. Old, grey and oversized. Her chin was tucked into the worn collar of it. Her hair was wild, messy and irritated by restless sleep. She hugged a pillow tightly; your pillow.
Her eyes were forlorn, staring into the mid distance, cheeks stained with old tears.
You called her name softly.
Natasha met your gaze with painful hesitation. Her lip quivered as she fought back against the obvious misery that your appearance brought with it.
‘Don’t go.’ Natasha pleaded simply, voice thick and hoarse. Her fingers tightened imperceptibly on your pillowcase.
‘I’m sorry.’ You whispered, hating the part of you that had once wished for her sadness. ‘You were trying your best and I made it all about me.’
Natasha’s lips pressed tightly together, and you knew she was trying desperately not to cry. She hid her face from you, burying it against your own pillowcase.
You walked over to the bed, enveloping her in the gentlest of hugs. You felt the shaking sadness of her silent cries beneath you.
‘I’m sorry.’ You murmured again, praying the words could hold the weight you gave to them. ‘I love you.’
Somewhere, muffled by your old t-shirt, your pillowcase and one of your worst mistakes. You heard Natasha speak.
She was awkward, limbs growing faster than she knew what to do with. Still skinny enough to be drowning in a band t-shirt that needed the sleeves rolled up.
You were the new kid at school. You were even more awkward.
On your first day, you saw her sitting alone at lunch. The cafeteria was overwhelmingly busy, seats at every other table were being fought over. You tried to keep your chin up as you walked the length of Natasha’s empty table, sliding onto the stool across from her.
Natasha’s head snapped up from her book at your arrival. It was a beaten up paperback, spine folded back on itself.
‘Any good?’ You asked cheerfully, if a little desperately. Just one friend. That’s all you needed. The other children made wide berths around you in the corridors, as if you were more alien than stranger.
Natasha seemed frustrated by your inquiry. She closed her book quickly and stuffed it back in her bag. She stared down at her half eaten peanut butter sandwich, purposefully avoiding your nervous smile.
You didn’t know what you’d done wrong.
‘Sorry.’ You muttered, heat flaming your cheeks.
You started to bounce your leg anxiously under the table. You picked at your own sandwich. You weren’t hungry, but you didn’t want to look even weirder than you already were.
A lump caught in your throat as you looked across the rest of the cafeteria. You felt jealous of the easy banter between the other large groups of students. You wished that it could be you. That you could fit in, just this once.
‘Sometimes, they steal my books.’ Natasha said unexpectedly. Her voice was carefully even. She tightened her loose grip on the strap of her backpack.
You glanced back out at the sea of students. Their playful banter had a mocking edge to it that you hadn’t noticed before.
‘That sucks.’ You answered fiercely.
Natasha rolled her eyes casually, taking another bite of her sandwich and retrieving her book again. You took a deep breath, settled by her nonchalance.
You felt hungrier and refocused on your lunch. As you ate, you zeroed in on a group of girls across the room. They were laughing as they ripped pages slowly from another beaten up book. Your mouth opened in shock.
‘They’re the worst.’ Natasha spoke up again, casually following your gaze. Her tone was dismissive.
You didn’t speak. You stared at your fingers as they twisted together atop the plastic table. Anxiety rolled through you.
None of these kids seemed to like you. You weren't even sure that you wanted them to. The next few years of education stretched before you ominously.
---
Suddenly, you felt a plastic wrapper graze along your forearm. You startled and looked up. Natasha pushed the chocolate bar across to you with her fingertips.
‘My mom always packs two.’ She informed you with a shy shrug.
One of the kids at this school liked you.
You smiled again.
‘I like your blue hair.’ You blurted as you took the chocolate bar.
Natasha’s cheeks tinged pink. You caught the way she lifted her chin up when she next met your eyes.
‘Thanks.’ She mumbled, awkwardly offering out her hand to shake. ‘My name’s Natasha.’
—
Natasha was your first friend. For a long time, she was your only one.
Then, one day she was no one at all.
—--------------
You didn’t see her again until 2012.
When your best friend had gone missing, the stories that swarmed the neighbourhood were unbelievable.
There had been no warning from the family. No phone number, no forwarding address.
The first rumour was that loan sharks were after Natasha’s Dad.
Then, men in suits came knocking on the neighbours’ doors. The rumours shifted to something more criminal; money laundering, fraud.
Bullies at school laughed at you. The joke was that you’d somehow scared off the second weirdest kid in school. You grieved Natasha’s disappearance alone.
You sat through classes silently, dreaming up a hundred reasons to justify why Natasha might leave you behind in a place like this.
Nothing could have been more far-fetched than the truth.
A super spy.
You were watching the live news broadcast when New York was attacked. Everyone was.
You stared at raw footage of an alien race invading the planet. Nothing could be more shocking, you thought. And then, you saw the Avengers.
Natasha did not look the same.
No more awkward and gangly, no more blue hair.
It was the familiar tilt of her chin as she stared up at a passing spacecraft that jolted your memory.
You knelt in front of your TV, trying to get closer to the impossible picture.
Two days later, the city officials held a large press conference. It was hosted on the first floor of the new Stark Tower. Steve Rogers and Tony Stark were in attendance.
Tony Stark called her ‘Red’ off-handedly.
That’s what gave you the idea.
There was nothing else you could think to do anyway. Natasha Romanoff had the shortest Wikipedia entry you’d ever seen.
You addressed a letter to Stark Tower in the hopes that it might reach her. It was beyond a long shot, but you had to try.
It was hard to explain the national feeling of adrenaline that lingered after the attack. It almost seemed like sure fate that Natasha would reply. Impossible odds were being beaten all the time.
----
It was not that simple.
It took six months for you to hear a response.
Your phone buzzed in the middle of the night with a text.
Despite the late hour, the text was carefully constructed.
You used to be able to read Natasha’s nervousness a mile off. When her Dad called her home early. When the teacher called her out for exceptional work in class. When you asked her favourite Christmas present and she stumbled over the answer.
‘Thanks for reaching out.’ She began, formal with her friendliness. ‘I do remember you and I appreciated your letter. We should meet up soon.’
The text sounded distant, but you felt certain that she wouldn't have sent it if she hadn’t wanted a response.
You tried to picture the woman that you’d seen on television, but all you could think of was the blue haired girl.
Despite everything that had happened. Natasha was still Natasha.
You called her.
She answered after two rings. Vindication rippled over your skin, you were right.
‘Hi.’ Natasha breathed out.
Her voice rasped unfamiliarly.
Your heart twisted as you heard all the years that had passed.
Natasha Romanoff was an adult now.
‘I’ve missed you so much.’ You told her before you had time to think.
You heard her muted surprise in shallow breaths.
‘I missed you too.’ She murmured after a moment. There was a pang of emotion in her voice, you could feel it down the phone. ‘You were my best friend.’
Your stomach swooped strangely at her words.
You tried to play off the feeling. You sighed with mock dramatics.
‘Now, you prefer the Hulk right?’ You teased.
‘Oh yes.’ Natasha hummed, picking up the easy pattern of your teenage conversations. ‘He’s much better company.’
You talked for twenty minutes, mixing nostalgia with light inquiries about her new life.
Before the call ended, Natasha invited you to visit her in New York.
It was an easy answer to give.
When you hung up the phone, you held it close to your chest for a moment. The room was beginning to grow light with the dawn outside.
—-------
Natasha was not an awkward teenager anymore.
She waited for you in the entrance of Stark Tower, dressed casually in leggings and a hoodie.
It was unnerving. She was almost familiar to you.
Your eyes met as you entered through the glass front doors.
Natasha hugged herself, playing with the grey fabric of her hoodie.
You remembered the nervous gesture. You wondered if she still had the habit, or if she’d just remembered it because of you.
You sensed her uncertainty as you got closer. You opened your arms for a hug and she looked grateful for the direction.
She fit perfectly.
Your eyes filled with tears as her arms tightened around you.
When Natasha pulled away, she gave you a confused look.
You shook your head, swallowing down the lump in your throat.
‘I always hoped you were okay.’ You mumbled, wiping your cheeks, embarrassed at how quickly you’d gotten emotional. ‘I’m so glad you’re alive.’
Natasha’s eyes shuttered with a sudden blankness. She tried to shake it away too.
‘No-one’s ever said that to me before.’ She murmured under her breath, before leading you back to the Tower’s elevators.
You pondered her words during the silent elevator ride. Natasha’s life was clearly full of danger. She was on the front line of extra-terrestrial defence. She’d fought monsters on live tv.
You thought of the fake American Mom and Dad you’d been introduced to. You thought of the little sister, who had seemed so devoted to Natasha.
Now noone was praying for Natasha to come home safe.
In the elevator you took her hand, squeezing it gently.
Natasha looked at you, eyes crinkling with simple happiness. She squeezed back.
‘Red hair suits you.’ You commented. ‘But, I preferred the blue.’
Natasha rolled her eyes with mock exasperation. The elevator doors opened.
—---------
The space was obviously built to be a common area, but it was empty now.
Natasha led you through the middle of it.
You entered her room, following behind her. You stopped in the doorway, trying to take it in.
As a teenager, Natasha’s bedroom had been wall-to-wall with bright posters. In contrast, this room seemed almost clinically blank.
A single piece of understated art hung on the far away wall. The bedspread was pristine white, like a hotel.
Your eyes clung to the only piece of personality in the room. A stack of CDs and a CD player lay on the hardwood floor, next to the largest window you’d ever seen. You recognised the top CD’s cover art immediately; Nevermind by Nirvana.
You looked at Natasha in surprise. It had been her favourite album when you’d last known her.
Natasha met your gaze readily. There was a glint of defiance in the tilt of her chin.
‘Oh, so you still have good taste.’ You grinned.
There was a pause. Natasha’s lip twitched with the start of a smile. Then, she hugged herself again.
‘I loved those songs.’ Natasha murmured, and her sudden fragility startled you. ‘It was the best time.’
Her eyes were careful, but you felt the emotion hiding in them. You moved forward again, hugging her instinctively.
‘The best time.’ You agreed quietly.
You spent the afternoon listening to the album, then another one, then another. The CD collection was well played. Sometimes the disc would catch for a moment, but the song would always persevere.
You didn’t feel the need to talk.
Natasha sprawled out on her bed, head cupped in her hands as she faced you. You sat on the windowsill by the music, leaning your head against the glass and watching her in return.
You exchanged smiles back and forth. You exchanged memories of the songs with just a twitch of an eyebrow or the quirk of a lip.
Natasha’s finger tapped at the side of her jaw absentmindedly.
Eventually, time moved on. When one more album finished playing, Natasha swung her legs over the side of her bed and stretched casually. You didn’t believe the nonchalance for a second, sure that such a smooth gesture must take forethought.
‘Dinner?’ She asked and you nodded with a smile, ready and terrified to meet her roommates.
-----
Captain America offered you a bowl of pasta.
The weirdest day of your life only got weirder. The other Avengers were sitting around the large flat-screen television in the centre of the common space. Natasha picked her feet up as she stepped around their legs, heading to the furthest away sofa.
You followed behind her, muttering quiet hellos in answer to the openly curious stares of Iron Man, Hawkeye and Dr. Banner.
Natasha tucked her legs in as she sat at the furthest edge of the sofa.
Automatically, you followed a habit that had been established years before. You threw yourself casually into the space directly next to her. Your fork snuck over to her bowl of pasta, stealing a piece. You tasted it and grinned.
‘Yours is always better.’ You complained, watching as Natasha stuck her tongue out in response.
You only remembered your audience when Tony Stark cleared his throat.
‘Did she tell you that she’s a ruthless assassin.’ He stated loudly, receiving a not-so-subtle elbow jab from Captain America.
‘What?’ Tony retorted, rubbing his side pointedly. ‘She’s never brought a date home before. And there must be a reason she’s called the Black Widow.’
You watched Natasha from the corner of your eye; the sudden embarrassment spilling over her face. The shame that lingered for a split second.
‘Not all names are literal.’ You answered bitingly, feeling an old defensive urge flaring. There had been enough bullies going after Natasha when you were in high school. ‘We don’t call you Micro-Penis Man, do we?’
Hawkeye snorted with laughter, Dr. Banner’s lip twitched.
‘Clever.’ Tony drawled sarcastically.
You ignored him, turning back to Natasha instead. Her expression was unreadable as she searched your face. You didn’t know what she was looking for.
'Hey.' You whispered, keen to break the unspoken tension between you. 'If they call you Red, can I call you Blue?'
Natasha's lips twitched imperceptibly with a smile. She leaned across your lap, stealing a piece of pasta from your plate.
You sat in silence for the rest of your meal, watching the generic movie on screen instead of engaging in more awkward conversation with the group. Natasha's shoulder bumped lightly against your own.
More than once, you felt the others' curious stares lingering on you.
—--
As soon as you’d both finished eating, Natasha led you back to her room. This time, the air inside felt different. You caught the loosening of her shoulders, her subtle relief at returning to her own space. She unzipped her hoodie, throwing it haphazardly on top of her bedspread.
You glanced back around the room, realising abruptly that the design wasn’t clinical at all. It was more reminiscent of a spa.
You caught Natasha’s attention and gave her an encouraging smile.
‘Nice digs.’ You commented, raising your eyebrows.
Natasha laughed once, voice so much richer than you remembered. She ran her fingers through her hair and your attention caught on the muscles flexing in her bare arm.
‘It’ll do.’ She shrugged teasingly. ‘It’s nicer than Ohio.’
You sniffed dramatically. ‘But there're alien attacks in Ohio.’
‘Just Russian infiltration.’ Natasha countered dryly. An unexpected shiver ran through you as she finally acknowledged the unspoken truth. Of the childhood friendship that had brought you here and the lie at the centre of it.
A hot sadness bubbled up inside you. You could taste it burning your throat. Your eyes pricked suddenly with tears.
Natasha watched you stoicly, chin tilted in guarded defiance.
You moved toward her, watching as she resisted an urge to step further back. You took her hands in yours. You blinked and for a moment, her hair was blue.
‘I’m going to say this wrong.’ You explained ruefully, holding her wide eyed attention. Her palms were warm, soft and nearly familiar.
‘I’m on your side.’ You promised clumsily. ‘Even if you decide to join the aliens. Even if you don’t want me to be. You didn’t ever stop being my best friend.’
You waited for an evaluating stare, a moment of hesitation.
Instead, you felt the soft push of Natasha’s head pressing against your shoulder. Her body moved flush against yours. Your arms slid around her back and you felt the curve of her spine beneath her clothes. The thud of her heart, hidden within a ribcage.
You closed your eyes, savouring the warmth of her.
‘There’s a spare room ready.’ Natasha murmured at last, words muffled. ‘But you're welcome to just stay in here.’
She kept her chin high as she took a step back, regarding you expectantly.
You let a wide smile break out on your face.
‘A sleepover? On a school night?’ You teased, enjoying the way your enthusiasm brightened Natasha’s countenance too.
—--
Later, you changed into your pyjamas in Natasha’s ensuite bathroom. You brushed your teeth and stared at yourself for a few minutes in her large mirror.
You wondered how different you must look to her now. If she noticed all the traces of growing up laid out on your skin.
Natasha was beginning to feel eternal. The red hair was growing on you.
---
You left the bathroom and froze almost immediately in your tracks.
Natasha was standing at the foot of her bed, putting on her pyjama top. It was halfway over her head and the bare expanse of her back faced you.
You couldn’t stop your sharp intake of breath.
Hundreds of scars littered her soft curves.
Harsh, deep welts that hurt to look at. Natasha's skin was mottled in places, coated with different shades of injury. Some scars were older, but others seemed painfully new.
They criss-crossed into a brutal painting, brushstrokes feverishly ripped across her skin.
A sharp sense of outrage was already burning through you. A sour taste in your mouth. A need to fix what had already been done.
Natasha's hesitation barely lasted a second. She pulled her top down calmly, before turning to face you with steady resolve.
‘I’m not that kid anymore.’ She told you with simple directness.
Natasha kept her chin up as you walked closer to her. You noticed the slight tremble in her jaw when you were only inches away. She held her arms still at her side and you wondered if she was resisting the urge to hug herself. Instead, defensiveness rippled through her. A readiness to hold onto her dignity.
You had seen that stance many times before, in the high school cafeteria.
For the first time, you realised that Natasha did not remember you like you remembered her. She could not recall the simplicity of life with teenage drama and stupid crushes.
A lifetime of trauma sat between you. There was no before or after for Natasha.
She’d had scars long before she’d had blue hair.
There were no words for your new understanding. No way to express it right. Your chest squeezed with something like love or sadness.
‘I know.’ You answered her at last.
You touched Natasha’s face without thinking, a careful stroke along her cheek. Your fingers reached her red hair and you thumbed a piece of it reverently.
When you looked back to her face, Natasha’s eyes were closed.
Your kiss was feather light. Your lips barely brushed hers.
The taste of her stained your mouth anyway.
You felt new pieces of yourself click together, reorienting like a compass finding North.
Natasha’s eyes fluttered open and her smile was new and shy. You still saw the fear lingering at the edge of everything. You chose not to mind it. You were glad to be able to recognise it.
—--
You slept in the same bed that night with Natasha holding your arm lightly between her own two.
Her even breaths lulled you with their gentle rhythm. Loose strands of her hair tickled at your clavicle.
You stared at the ceiling and thought about intimacy. About love and friendship.
The tattoo of Natasha on your lips was spreading through your veins now.
---
At 3am, the alarm sounded.
Sudden and pounding, it echoed through the ceiling. A droning tempo that had you scrambling to your feet.
Natasha grabbed your arm tiredly, slowing your sleepy confusion.
‘Avengers alarm.’ She informed you, voice crisp and clear. 'There's no fire.'
You felt like you’d barely had time to blink before a dressed Natasha Romanoff was walking out the door.
All the words you wanted to say were still on your tongue.
-------
Four hours.
Four hours spent pacing the common room. Watching an unhelpful news broadcast tell you terrifying speculation and hoping the building’s AI would give you something useful.
Four hours imagining the worst. Four hours praying for her to come home.
When the elevator doors opened at last, Natasha stood alone, suit coated in grime and blood. She held her chin up, defiant in the face of fatigue. You watched the way she hugged herself subtly, a nervous habit.
You were beside yourself.
‘Thank God’ You muttered as you hurried forward, pulling Natasha into a tight hug. You breathed the familiar smell of her and held her even tighter.
‘I'm so glad you're alive.’ You whispered, more for yourself than for her.
When you let her go, Natasha took a moment to look at you properly.
‘You were waiting.’ Natasha commented slowly, her gaze never wavering.
You nodded silently, a lump catching in your throat. You couldn’t understand her expression. You wondered with new panic, if you’d crossed some line without realising.
If you'd finally made an assumption based on the girl you'd once known, rather than the woman in front of you.
You forgot about thinking when Natasha took another step towards you. Her hand touched your waist. With one finger, she reached forward and tilted your chin towards her.
She licked her lips, full of intentionality.
Her mouth pressed surely against yours.
—--------
When you fell in love with Natasha, she had red hair.
Summary: Some mistakes have irredeemable consequences. Wanda will learn about it the hard way. [Requested]
Word count: 1.250 || Pronouns: not used
Warnings: cheating, angst
A/N: So... I listened to Midnights... That's all I'm going to say. Enjoy the pain!
You do NOT have permission to repost or translate my work on any platforms (even with credit)
Halloween Special | Masterlist | Be notified of my stories
───── ⋅ ✮ ⋅ ─────
It’s funny how some habits grow out to have completely different meanings than they had before. It’s bittersweet.
One of Wanda’s favorite activities of all time was spending time with you, just the two of you in silence. Hearing your heartbeat as she laid on your chest; hearing the rustle of the leaves outside as the both of you read a book - by yourselves, but still together.
The two of you appreciated the silence, that was one of the many things you found out you had in common in the early stages of your relationship. The lack of words that said way more than enough.
But now it was all different. Your silence doesn't have the same meaning it once did. In fact, Wanda finds herself thinking quite often, it doesn’t have any meaning at all. And the worst part was that there was no one to blame but herself.
It’s a windy day today. And neither you nor Wanda were able to postpone the promise you’d made to Billy and Tommy of taking them to the city park so they could play on the fallen leaves.
So here you are, sitting on a park bench, watching as your sons play with some other kids from the neighborhood, laughing and running around as you and the redhead stay there, in silence. An excruciating silence.
A few minutes before, a kind woman offered to take a picture of the four of you, after she saw you were taking pictures of the twins making angels on the sea of leaves on the floor. Wanda’s heart stopped when you agreed, thanking the stranger with the kind smile you last offered your wife a long time ago.
The four of you got together in front of a big tree, your hand resting on Tommy’s shoulder as Wanda did the same with Billy. Following her instincts, she slipped her free arm around your middle. It took her just a second to realize what she’s done, and she was about to pull away if you hadn’t slipped your own over her shoulders.
Wanda wanted to cry right there, the lump in her throat making it hard to breathe. But she took a deep breath, blinking rapidly to push her tears away as she forced a smile at your phone that the unknown woman held in front of her face, hiding half of the smile she was giving at the cute family on the screen. Looks really can be deceiving.
When the stranger announced the picture was taken, you pulled away faster than you’d ever done before, rubbing your nose in the way you always did when you were uncomfortable. You thanked the woman before taking your phone back, checking the picture just enough not to be rude at her kind offer. Wanda ruffled the boys' hair before thanking her as well, and as soon as the woman was gone, the perfect family facade fell apart, the two of you back on the bench, in silence.
There, the redhead thinks about making some conversation - meaningless topics she’s become accustomed to choosing to fill the void whenever it was only the two of you. It hurts, it always does. But, still, it hurt less than talking about nothing at all.
However, the moment she looks at you, she loses her nerve. Even if you weren’t looking at her, she could see the pain behind your eyes. The eyes she loves so deeply; that she could never wish to be gone from her life.
And, in moments like that one, Wanda hated how well she knew you; how she was able to read you like the back of her hand.
Because, right now, she knows exactly what’s going through your mind. That night, a few weeks ago, when you found out about her affair with one of her coworkers in the worst possible way.
She didn’t mean it, nothing of it. She was dissatisfied with her job and with not being able to achieve her professional dreams. None of that was an excuse, of course, and she hadn't been able to convince you of it in the long fight you had about her cheating. You and she knew about the redhead's self-destructive behavior of sabotaging herself whenever a small detail of her life went wrong. But that was too much to forgive.
At first, Wanda thought there was nothing worse than making you cry like that - loud sobs of pain and anger, mingled in accusations and hurtful words. But she was proved wrong the moment your tears subsided, your jaw clenched tightly. The moment you said it was over, but that you wouldn't file for divorce yet because the boys were too young and they didn't deserve it. It broke her, but there was nothing she could do about it since she broke you first.
So here you are. An unhappy marriage with two six-year-olds to take care of and for whom you have to pretend that everything was fine.
Later that night - long after the four of you went back home and not many minutes after you put the boys to sleep -, Wanda was taking the dinner dishes out of the dishwasher and putting them back in their respective drawers and cabinets. Her heart tightened a little when she heard your footsteps approaching.
“Wanda?” Your voice took her by surprise, her eyes wide as she turned to look at you. “Yes?” The redhead’s voice was a mere whisper, looking at you intently as your gaze rested on the floor for a moment in which you gathered the strength to look at her before you did so.
“There’s going to be a parent-teacher conference on Tuesday morning at the boys’ school. But I’ll be working, can you go?” Your voice is almost robotic, devoid of feelings, wanting to end that conversation as quickly as possible, and Wanda's shoulders drop slightly, nodding slowly. “Sure.” A humorless chuckle escaped her lips before she found herself saying, “for a moment I thought you wanted to talk about us.”
Your response is a loud gulp that the redhead can see in your throat the moment before you avert your gaze from hers. Suddenly feeling very vulnerable, Wanda spins on her heels, hiding her tears as she busies herself tidying the glasses more than it would be necessary.
A loud gasp of surprise makes its way past her lips a few moments later, when she feels your hand resting on her shoulder. The redhead dares not move, certain that the slightest movement would make you pull away. But out of the corner of her eye, Wanda can see that your arm is outstretched, putting as much distance between the two of you as you can as you touch her. She doesn't know how to feel about the whole thing.
“Goodnight.” You say it the next moment, a whisper so low that it is almost drowned out by the low rumble of the refrigerator's motor. The redhead, too astonished to be able to say anything, remains silent, and you take your hand off her shoulder, and make your way with quick steps out of the kitchen, towards the guest room that was slowly becoming your bedroom.
Even though the touch lasted only a few seconds, Wanda could still feel it burning her skin under her pajama top. And, laying her face on her own shoulder, your wife finally allows the tears to fall, wishing there was a less painful punishment for all of her mistakes.
Summary: Sometimes losing control is the only way to get what you truly want
Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Reader
Word Count: about 2.3k
Warnings: Dark Fic (allusions to murder and being chased by military/police, slight stalking vibes), strapon use (Wanda receiving), Power-Bottom Wanda, Mommy kink, Lactation kink, slight magic use, lil bit of Somno, if you squinnnnt there's Corruption kink
*As Usual if I miss anything important let me know!*
A/N: HIiii welcome to the first fic of my Occult Celebration! This is one of the shorter, kinda tame fics for the month sooo hopefully you guys like it!! AND for @maximotts Wanda lives :|
***Minors DNI*** ***18+ Only***
Main Master List // Kitmoas | Occult
The way she stretched around your strap was mesmerizing but you were terrified that you weren’t doing it right. This wasn’t the way you ever thought you would lose your virginity, but how could you say no to such an intoxicating person. Cold metal brushing against your cheek derails your train of thought, making you blink mindlessly as you try to focus on the brunette laid out under you. She shoves two fingers into your mouth, the faint taste of metallic spreads across your tastebuds. “You’re thinking entirely too much, pretty girl.” Letting a line of drool fall onto your almost completely shredded shirt as she wipes her hand on your cheek. She looks entirely too composed with her legs spread as you work between them.
Your eyes trail up her body, getting stuck momentarily on the way her breasts bounce with each awkward thrust. Gulping, your tongue slips out to swipe along your bottom lip as you try to focus. Finally meeting her gaze a whine tumbles out of your mouth, pathetic and shrill, as you try to awkwardly nuzzle into the hand still caressing your face. “Mommy..” The word is involuntary, and it’s already hanging in the air by the time your eyes widen in terror. You just barely met this lady a few days ago and she’s letting you have sex with her, and you probably just ruined it by letting your emotions run free.
Olive darkened to a deep jade almost instantly, the guttural moan that tumbles from her mouth at the whimpered title made you clench around nothing. Her leg wraps around your hip, toppling you forward until you are hovering over her. “Be a good girl for Mommy and help her feel good” Her hand twists around, fingers gripping your jaw to keep you focused on her face. Even as sirens and sounds of the city behind you go off, even as you flinch with each sound, Wanda demands your attention.
What you didn’t know was she had been watching you, stumbling through life for weeks now. Miserable and pitiful were the only words she could truly describe you as, yearning for a sense of control and achievement. Your job gave you nothing and you had no family in your life, so what better way to give it to you than getting something in return. Watching your focus struggle, the beginnings of her warm fog settling over your mind is intoxicating to the brunette. She wants to see it more, no she needs to break you more.
It was woefully easy to get close to you, which surprised the older woman as most were wary as of late. The news spreading entirely too quickly now-a-days truly would be her downfall, but she couldn’t move on from you until she got what she wanted. While the need to ruin you, and your body, for anyone that would ever dare come after her was motivation enough for the witch she knew that wasn’t what you needed at the time. Her need for control, desire to reshape a person had to wait if she wanted complete docility from you. That’s how you ended up in one of the many abandoned homes, war all around you, but none of that mattered to either of you as you rutted into the woman laid out underneath you.
“Focus for Mommy, detka. Nothing else matters right now.” She speaks in shaky whispers, broken up with grunts and gasps, as she guides you through each movement. Her hand is pulling at your wrist, urging you to lean heavily on one elbow. Directing your now free hand down her body, she squeezes her breast with your hand, hips jumping as your rough palm rubs just right against her pebbled nipple.
Your fuzzy brain works overtime to learn quickly, taking each movement and reaction from her as notes. Running a shaky thumb over her nipple, you try to ignore all the cuts and bruises along her torso. The urge to kiss them is strong and maybe that’s just because you can’t imagine someone wanting to hurt someone like her, but now isn’t the time. This wasn’t love nor was it the affectionate experience you were expecting, and you couldn’t treat it like it was.
The older woman releases her death grip on your jaw, cooing as she rubs along the now bright red tender skin. She lets her nails scratch at your pulse point, chuckling as your hips stutter and rubs against the soft spot inside her. “You’re doing so g-good. Don’t stop baby, you’re gonna make Mommy cum for you.” Her fist closes around your throat, almost too tightly, as stars explode in your cloudy vision.
Letting go of her breast, you have to lean on both hands to stay hovering above the brunette. When she wraps her other leg around your hips, pulling your lower body flush against her so you can just barely rut into her, you can’t help the garbled blubbering. “Leas mommy, wanna make y’cum.” The heavy fog in your mind settles quick, dense and unwavering as each clumsy push of your hips draws a deep moan from the green eyed beauty.
It doesn’t take much more for the older woman to fall over the edge, your sloppy and frenzied thrusts breaking the gate open. You can feel the wetness leaking from her, the sound of the strap as it thrusts lazily fills the air. Panting and whimpers dance together as the two of you try to collect yourselves. The hand around your throat is still tight, the rings digging painfully into the sensitive skin and veins.
It’s a loud siren, fairly close, that prompts her to move. Pushing at you, she’s forcing you to move and you can see how she flinches when the strap slips out. You want to console her, the fuzzy feeling in your brain making it impossible for you to keep up with her panicked rushed actions. All you know is that when you fell out of her, you seemingly hurt her and you didn’t like how that settled in your gut.
Wanda ignores your sniffles, hushing the pitiful mewling as you try to soothe any pain you may have caused. She’s pulling you up, causing you to stumble behind her as she drags you up a set of stairs and into a small closet. “You want your reward, pet?” Your mindless nod is enough that she shoves you down, straddling your hips as she follows you. She’s reaching between her legs, dragging the tip of the strap through her folds before slowly sliding down it. Her bottom lip is between her teeth, her forest eyes fluttering as she tries to watch your reaction to her.
Your hands are tight against your sides, shaking from how aggressive your fists are formed, the lack of confidence apparent. Blushing furiously under the amused gaze of Wanda, you just try to watch her as she bounces slowly in your lap. Trying to commit your reward to your memory, you wiggle slightly under her as your want to touch her grows more prominent the longer she teasingly rides you. Easily able to overlook your own desire and needs, no matter how you leak onto the flimsy blanket laid out beneath the two of you.
Her hands tangle in your hair, gripping tightly and her rings rub against your scalp. She’s panting as she pushes herself closer to the edge, grinding down swiftly to try and speed everything up so the two of you wouldn’t get caught. “It’s s-so cute that you think Mommy riding your pretty cock is your reward.” Her crude words make you flush even more, but it’s one of her hands directing your chin down so you’re closer to her breast that makes you go bright red. Her body slows its movements, grinding purposefully, as she guides your face closer. “Go ahead angel, I know you want to and you’ve been such a good girl for me. Letting me use you and making me cum so hard. Open up.” Her voice is tauntingly sweet and you know she’s talking down to you, but it just makes you whine.
Your mouth opens and closes a few times before she bumps you, forcing your lips around her nipple. You don’t need to be told twice, not willing to let this opportunity pass you, letting your tongue run over the hardened bud. Latching on mindlessly as your head moves with the way Wanda’s body bounces, your mind seems to float away from you. What you weren’t expecting was a liquid running down your throat, a sweet treat that you can tell you’re already addicted to.
Looking up through your lashes in confusion, you can’t see the older woman’s red eyes with her head thrown back. She tries to not use her magic often, only when the authorities start getting too close to her for her personal liking but the brunette had a feeling that you would benefit from a drink. She never truly wanted these powers, only her brother found enjoyment in them, but she knew that her’s were different. The chaos that lives under her skin was dangerous, and while she wouldn’t unleash it in the deadly crimson mist Wanda wasn’t afraid to let that restless energy find other ways to manifest. Each moment of carnage brings only a flash of peace for the brunette, the tranquility rapidly becoming addictive and the primal urge evermore.
Ultimately the witch was too powerful for this city, but everything she ever needed was here. Her brother was here, you were here, and if that meant hiding her powers then so be it. If that meant only using her powers in dire situations, then that’s what Wanda would do. Setting up rules and boundaries allowed her to have her fun as circumstances warranted, but only as long as she actually followed them.
Breaking that rule to give you something to latch onto, something that would sink you further into devotion to her was a risk she was willing to take. The feeling of you drinking from her was overwhelming and she could feel traces of her magic dribbling into you. A spell that would keep your brain muddled and fuzzy but only play on your deepest desires. It was entirely too heady and she knew she wouldn’t last long as you feverishly switched to the neglected nipple, latching on naturally as she let her rings tangle in your hair.
The moans tumbling from the brunette’s lips made you whimper, a pathetic barely there sound muffled against the swell of her breast. The fog in your brain and the heaviness of your eyelids begin to catch up with you, struggling to stay attached to Wanda as she chases her high. You don’t even register your body heaving with the brunette’s harsh movements.
Eyes fluttering closed, you aren’t sure when you dip into the dark depths of sleep but you know that even in your dreams you could hear the high pitched whimper that the other woman tries to muffle as she bites on her arm. Using your body even as your slack jaw and limp neck flops backwards, the fingers weaved into your locks the only thing keeping your head from slamming into the chipped plywood behind you. Tremors rippling through her entire body as she struggles to breath, sitting on your lap as her full weight leans against you. She can feel your soaked legs beneath her, an uncharastic blush rising up her cheeks as she realizes just how much she came.
Trembling as she leans heavily against you, the new witch tries to calm her racing heart down. Finally pulling away from you she sighs heavily, shaking her head angrily at herself. You were never meant to be important to her, she couldn’t put what she and Pietro had at risk but she knew that she couldn’t truly harm you. You weren’t necessarily different from all the other victims, but you were better. Something about you was drawing her in and she knew that she couldn’t just leave you. The way you made her feel, even through your subtle feelings and thoughts, was something that she could never forget.
The sounds of banging and yelling could be heard downstairs, loud and surprisingly it doesn’t wake you up. Wanda stands slowly, wincing as the strap slips out of her. She almost leaves without you, almost creates a portal directly away from you and leaves you there filled with magic that will corrupt you from the inside out. She could find another girl, another innocent little thing that would look at her like she was the entire world. There were always others, Wanda could always find a pretty hole to sedate her needs; for play and blood.
The brunette can’t even take a full step before she’s turning back to you, wrapping you up in her magic as she lets clothing appear on the both of you. A soft smile as she sees you all wrapped up in her maroon sweatshirt, the hood falling over your eyes slightly. A heavy exhale leaves her lips as she straightens her back, squaring her shoulders as she makes up her mind. She prays that her brother will understand, but she knows it’ll just be a bit of a fight. In a whisper of scarlet mist, the two of you disappear just as the police break down the door to the room–just a soaked sheet left on the ground.
Yayy masterlist time! I hope you're all as excited by the requests I picked as I am! It really was soooo hard to choose and I got so many amazing ideas that I just couldn't commit to doing them all in just one month. But even if you don't see yours on here, that doesn't mean I'm not saving it for later! Each prompt will be posted in the given week in October, some will be longer than others buuutt y'all will just have to wait and see which ones.
: ♱ * 𝓦𝓮𝓮𝓴 𝓞𝓷𝓮: 𝑀𝒶𝓂𝒶
━ ☽ ☾ King Valkyrie// face fucking + accidental stimulation
━ ☽ ☾ dark SW!Wanda// corruption + squirting
━ ☽ ☾ Doll House AU mommy!Wanda// dressing up + magic restraints
: ♱ * 𝓦𝓮𝓮𝓴 𝓣𝔀𝓸: 𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝐻𝑜𝓊𝓈𝑒 𝑜𝓃 𝒮𝑜𝓇𝑜𝓇𝒾𝓉𝓎 𝑅𝑜𝓌
━ ☽ ☾ bottom!sorority!Wanda// dry humping + thigh riding + accidental stimulation
━ ☽ ☾ sorority big sisters!WandaNat// being recorded + face fucking + strap ons
━ ☽ ☾ mean bottom!cheerleader Nat// car sex + minding your manners
━ ☽ ☾ My Soul to Keep AU angel!Wanda// sensory depravation + wing play
━ ☽ ☾ priest's daughter!Wanda// corruption + degradation
━ ☽ ☾ My Soul to Keep AU angel!Wanda// marking + humiliation + cum strap
━ ☽ ☾ Taylor Sloane// Halloween costumes + semi-public sex + begging
Stay. i don't wanna share you with the rest of the world.
"Stay. I don't wanna share you with the rest of the world." You chuckle at your girlfriend's words, but Wanda is determined to keep you in bed, her arms and leg trapping your body.
"I'm afraid you'll have to, darling, I have to work." You comment as you caress her back, an amused smile on your lips when she grumbles her disagreement. "No, you don't. You need to stay with me."
"What about the money to pay for our stuff?" You argue, receiving a snort of dissent and a tightening of her limbs around you. "Who needs money? Fuck the capitalism."
"Unfortunately the world won't stop being capitalist because you don't like it, my little communist." You reason with a laugh, but the brunette does not waver. "Fuck the world then." Her grumble makes you laugh harder, and her face is buried so close to your neck that you can feel her smile on your skin.
"Wands, I have to go. I'll be back for dinner." You try again, trying to break free from your girlfriend's embrace but to no avail. "That's too late." She grumbles, loosening her hold on you just so she can prop herself up on her elbows and look at you, and you smile. "We can have lunch together."
"I can't I'll be at work." She complains, and you let out a playful grin. "Fuck the capitalism." You repeating her words makes the brunette giggles with amusement. "Fine." She surrenders with a sigh, giving you those puppy dog eyes of hers as she asks, "One last kiss?"
Instead of a verbal answer, you lean up, connecting your lips to hers gently. The kiss, however, soon evolves into something much more intense, and you only realize your girlfriend's intentions when she straddles your lap. "Oh, no, I know what you're doing."
"I wanna see you try and stop me." It's her response as she tugs on your lower lip. And when she thrusts her hips downward, pressing her center against your abdomen, you already know you'll have to make up an excuse to your boss today.
"You are mine. You belong to me only." Wanda's voice echoes dangerously through the walls of the throne room, and you can only keep your gaze on the dark stone floor. "Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes." You agree through greeted teeth, scarlet magic keeping you in a kneeling position. Her footsteps surround you until you see her dark leather boots in front of your knee. "Yes, what?"
"Yes, my queen." You spit out the words bitterly, nausea settling in your stomach at the hum of approval she offers you. "Good. Remember that when you so much as think about speaking to another woman."
"Lady Romanoff isn't another woman." You argue with an impatient scoff, trying to fight Wanda's magic but to no avail. "She's the Army Commander and was rather concerned about your latest orders, my queen, so she came to me, the Queen's Hand-"
"You know damn well why I keep you as the Queen's Hand." You're unable not to roll your eyes at the innuendo behind her words, which earns you a sadistic laugh from the redhead. "Oh, don't make that face now, I know pretty well how you feel with my orders. Don't forget I can read your mind."
"And what am I thinking now?" You challenge, and just as quickly as the Chaos Magic brought you to your knees it lifts you off the ground, the red energy around your neck like a choking rope.
"Careful, what you say to me." She warns dangerously, her voice as dark as her eyes locked on yours, and you struggle to hold her gaze as black dots begin to consume your vision.
With a winning smirk, the witch moves her hand, the magic dissipating as you fall to the ground again, one hand on your neck while the other supports you on the cold stone floor.
"Don't forget how easily replaceable you are." She says scornfully, not in the least concerned about your labored breathing nor the purple mark around your throat, and you're unable to contain your anger. "Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, because I can't stand to watch you destroy kingdom after kingdom for petty wishes anymore-"
"You're exhausting my patience." Her jaw is locked as she shuts you up with her magic. But then she's smiling in that way you know nothing good will come of it. And her next words only confirm your theory.
"Come on, now. Let's find some better use for that pretty mouth of yours."
Wanda riding R's strap for the first time. They've only ever done missionary or from behind. It can be alot but in the best way...Iykyk.
Ridin' - Wanda Maximoff Drabbles
Summary: Wanda tries a new position on the couch. | Words: 1.044k
Warnings: (+18), strap-on use, bottom!Wanda and Brat!Reader, teasing, praising, established relationship.
A/N-> Yes I'm gonna call a 1k work a drabble, I make the rules.
General Masterlist | Wattpad | AO3 | Drabbles
--//--
Gasping whispers mingled with the sound of your mouths pressing together. Wanda, straddling your lap, seemed to grow impatient with each second, hands tangled in your hair trying to bring you closer even though there was no space between your bodies.
The hardness in your pants - magically placed there by the impatient witch - was rubbing against her thigh with every movement of her hips and was driving her to insanity.
She took a soft bite of your lip, breaking the kiss to unbutton your jeans, and you took the opportunity to move your lips down her jaw and neck, almost making her lose concentration on what she was doing.
But once Wanda pulled the strap out, and the hard tip rubbed against her covered intimacy, she shuddered, a whimper ripping through her throat.
"Baby, I need you inside..." She practically begged, nails scratching under your blouse, and it was your turn to shudder, tracing your way back to her face with firm kisses.
Once your gaze met hers, your hands drew patterns on her thighs. "How about...you ride me?" Your suggestion brings a strong pink to her cheeks, but the green practically disappears from her pupils as well, giving way to a hungry look of lust. She nods, and you smile. "Think you're ready for this, pretty girl?"
Instead of answering, Wanda settles better into your lap, and you let her run the whole thing. She guides the toy between her folds and takes a deep breath as you taught her the first time, before sinking in. You both moan at the contact, the strap-on magically charmed so that you feel all the way inside her, the warm, moist walls squeezing your cock tightly.
"Fuck, baby." You gasp, steadying your hands on her waist and waiting for Wanda to get used to the invasion.
She looks up at you, lips swollen from so much kissing and cheeks burning red, and she looks absolutely beautiful with your cock buried deep inside her. "Can I move?" You ask breathlessly against her lips, and instead of answering, Wanda kisses you slowly and passionately, her hands moving on top of yours so that you invade her blouse and pull the material out of her body. Once the item comes off, and her breasts are exposed to the cold air of the empty complex, your natural instinct is to lunge into her hardened nipples, tongue, and tooth marking the soft, sensitive skin and almost making Wanda scream with the most delicious stimulation.
Your hips jerk upward, and she gasps heavily, her hands gripping your arms. You thrust again, and again, and Wanda whimpers. Before you can build up a rhythm inside her, however, she brings her hands to your shoulder and pushes you back to the couch.
"What are you up to...?" Your question turns into a gasping grunt as Wanda rolls over on the strap, biting back a mischievous grin when she sees the way you lock your jaw, trying not to lose control. "Go on then. Show me how you want it."
She starts slowly, thighs twitching as she finds her rhythm until she is bouncing gently on top of the toy. You both pant softly with each movement, the fake cock sliding in and out of her wet folds.
"I need... faster." She tries to guide you between one gasping sigh and another, and although your hands are steady on her waist, you offer her a challenging smile.
"Do you? Well, move then. It was you who pushed me away." You tease, and Wanda grunts softly, but before you can take pity on her, red sparks appear around your wrists and pull your arms away from her, effectively pinning your hands on top of your head. "Wanda-"
"That's for being a brat." She cuts you off, eyes glittering with mischief. But her smile falters when you firm your feet on the cushions and throw your hips up, eliciting a squeaky moan. "Don't make me tie your ankles." She warns with her nails digging into your stomach, and you give a breathless giggle, deciding to obey her. She takes a deep breath, beginning to grow a rhythm on top of you again, and you gasp at the feel of her walls squeezing your cock.
Once she approached her climax, body spasming and strokes getting more uncoordinated, the moans louder and more whimper-like, you pleaded, "Please let me touch you." But Wanda shook her head in the negative, eyes closed and frowning as she pushed her hips hard against you.
Your only option was to find the same rhythm as her and try to help her.
"Oh, just like that." She moaned loudly when you steadied your feet and moved your hips in her rhythm, finding that sweet spot that made her gasp. "I-I'm almost..." Her sentence became a loud, affected squeak, and as you felt her pussy squeeze you around the edge, you came too, hot cum staining Wanda inside and making her moan as she fell against you.
Her face met your collarbone as she tried to normalize her breathing, and her magic released your hands, which went immediately to caress her back as you moved your hips slowly, fucking her beyond her orgasm.
"You did so well, so hot watching you ride me." You praised against her ear, feeling her smile against your skin. But once she stopped trembling, your hand came down and grabbed her ass, pressing her hard against you and making her choke. "You think you can ride my face, now?"
"Babe!" Wanda whispers in shame, her burning face hiding in your collarbone. You laugh softly, returning to caressing her skin and imagining that the invitation would have to wait until Wanda is ready. But she settles against your chest, resting her chin on your skin. "You'll...be honest, right? Tell me if I'm too heavy, or suffocating you?"
"Oh, what an incredible way to die, smothered by your pussy..." You joke, and although she chuckles in embarrassment, Wanda slaps you in the ribs. As you calm down, you kiss her and again and again until she starts to get horny enough to bother. "Please, Wanda Maximoff, sit on my face." You whisper between kisses and she smiles shyly before nodding.
summary: life away from home is good, and you're studying at the college of your dreams; however, your new neighbor is loud, irritating and a person who doesn't respect boundaries. and, also, is your ex-girlfriend from high school, Wanda Maximoff.
warnings: lots of cursing, smoking, drinking, very brief mentions of smut, mentions of physical parental abuse, mentions of homophobia, angst, fluff.
pairing: Wanda x fem!reader
word count: 14k
A/N: and I'm back guys! I hope you guys like this, because I certainly enjoyed writing it!
|masterlist|
༺ᱬ༻
There's a thump on the wall behind your head, followed closely by a strident, full-bodied laugh and yet another dry bump, like a deferred hammer blow to a wet rag.
And then an eager conversation that goes back and forth around your head, which turns into lively, intelligible buzzes when muffled by a thin wall, which gives way to another round of drunken giggling like two intoxicated hyenas, as if the competition on the other side of the plaster, pipes and bricks were who could laugh the most without losing their breath first.
You open your eyes, but maybe you just haven't closed them quite yet. Your eyeballs sting as if carpeted by a thin dusty layer of sand that crinkles behind your eyelids, crying out for the sleep that never came, staring up at the white ceiling lit by the bluish luminosity coming from a streetlight outside.
Rolling lethargically to one side in your sheets, half grunting as you do so, your actions are shrouded in a thick veil of torpor; your tired left fingers grope vaguely on the pale wood dresser set beside your bed, and it is after considerable effort all blindly made in the helplessness of your dark room that you finally find the frozen plastic of your phone, that is plugged into the charger socket.
The white glow burns your retinas for half a second when you press the side button with the cheek of your thumb and unlock the screen half a foot away from the tip of your nose. Large digitized thin numbers show the time of 01:19 am. And you wonder who’s the goddamn bastard who would be making so much noise at 1:19 am on a full Monday, as if they were going to demolish the damn wall above your head.
Or a late Tuesday morning, in fact, your drunken brain kind of thinks so. But whatever, nobody cares.
You just know that you need a good night's sleep, and that your muscles are crying out for the much-needed relaxation found in the soft sheets of your bed, something that in the last week has seemed so difficult to achieve even while still inside your own home, your own apartment.
Life was placid, peaceful even, calm in the most acute sense of the word until it found its so fateful epilogue at the beginning of the last week. With the beginning of the college semester came the moving of your new next door neighbor (on the left), from who you don't even know what their face looks like, but who you sure know likes to enjoy life as if every day is the last one. Your healthy sleep has sickened and died on this neighbor's doorstep, so it's likely that each day will indeed be your last as long as your door is next to them.
And it's even odd for you, because your routine has been pretty much the same since you left the bliss of the small Westview, New Jersey (population 6,685), your birthplace and home, to go to college in the big city as soon as you got your high school diploma by shaking the headmistress' hand, three years ago or so.
Your day consists of working in the morning at a coffeeshop that has accepted your meager résumé as a recent high-school graduate and pays just enough to keep you from freezing or starving to death, a handful of classes to pay attention to in the afternoon, and overnight, after a few more hours of work, feed Loki, your grumpy black cat, and study for some upcoming test after having dinner on cereal with milk or instant noodles and drinking a bottle of cheap beer just because you can.
Sleep and repeat, one day after another.
But then it came, as the prelude to the descents of your peacetime; the thunderous beats and the guttural laughs, the intoxicating reek of smoked cigarettes one after the other, and the loud tunes of some distorted heavy guitar in an alternative rock song, engaged in a melodic voice that moans pro-sex and anti-system obscenities (and that actually, you kind of agree with that part).
But that mysterious person behind the wall is like a specter, a ethereal ghost, a foreboding sign that comes to haunt only at night, to torment and keep you from laying your head to rest against your pillow. And you know things aren't quite right with you because yesterday you burned the skin of your own hand by falling asleep propped up on the machine in the process of brewing a big, double espresso for a mean-looking man in a suit.
It's when the sound starts (and gets louder, and gets even louder after that, almost in the form of a rant) that you decide it's enough – the wall swelling with the sounds coming from behind it. Something in you comes undone in a bust, like a pulled thread that snaps in half from the tension at both ends, and the sleepless nights of the last week simply become too much to bear.
"You gotta be fucking kidding me..."
With your right hand you pull your covers to the side, and your bare feet nearly trample a sleeping Loki who's lying beside your bed like a pillow you accidentally dropped, and then you stand up, stretching your legs.
The cat meows in obvious displeasure when being woken up, straining with his front paws, but you just poke him in the side with the tip of your big toe.
“Sorry buddy, but I really need some sleep and this asshole next door isn't helping much.”
Your knees are bare, and your shoulders are tense as you step out of your tiny room into the single hallway, even scrawnier than your own room, and you go to your door, jerk it open, and then, marching like a general, you take about six or seven steps to the left to the side door, where the alternate metal song leaks through its cracks.
You knock once with your bent right fist, moving your wrist joint back and forth, but there is no immediate response and you just want to break down that door like your neighbor wants to break down your wall. Nor is there an eventual answer, when your good manners compel you to expect non-existent cooperation from this noisy stranger.
And you let out a cavernous grunt, plotting a lapse of hot rage inside you, feeling the tips of your ears and the skin of your shoulders smolder like embers.
“C’mon, open the damn door! I know you’re there! You can literally hear the music all the way down the hall, what the hell!”
And annoyance starts bubbling up inside you like magma inside a volcano about to erupt, growing and expanding in size, and then you hit it a second time, and then a third time, and you're barely counting how many times you knock on that damn door until you threaten to knock again (the side of your hand hurts), but then the door opens and your hand hangs in midair, like you're holding the handle of an invisible lantern.
You don't even hesitate to regurgitate, still half asleep and definitely very pissed off, the stress evaporating from inside you.
“Look here,” you begin to wiggle with your chest full of air and your cheeks burning, reciting the speech that has been stuck in your throat for about five or six days, “I know you probably have no idea or don’t care, I don't know which of the two options and honestly I don't give a damn about what you think, but some people around here tend to wake up early–”
And you blink at the figure in the doorway, a young girl with long dark hair who looks to be around your age. And she blinks back at you. And whatever you were going to say next, but the words die and wither behind your tongue, drying up in your throat. And you crease with the flash of skin between your eyebrows, as if you were facing some macabre apparition like in a horror movie.
“Wanda…?” a thoughtless whisper comes out of you that, without an effort, you would never have found actually slipped out of your lips, and not from some other person standing in the hallway that you just didn't see was there.
And it's like an atomic bomb being dropped from the skies on top of a city, because you see her (really see her), gorgeous and tangible, standing in front of you like a memory of your past, and your sleeping, irritated brain beeps and stops when your stomach drops, because your skin tingles as awareness leans over you and you realize that your incognito neighbor is, actually, an old acquaintance from a time you'd rather forget.
A time that you left behind, that you buried six feet from the ground and veiled and moved on after the due period of mourning paid in honor of your adolescence.
And the infectious smile she carries around the contour of her peach lips, with an air of excited laughter referring to a funny story still fresh on her features, fades, withers, and sets to dust when a glint of identification as helpless as yours breaks amidst her emerald irises, adorned by a smoky black eyeliner – the heavy makeup that looks like it was applied a long time ago, hours and hours behind the clock.
The atomic bomb dropped on the city exploded.
“Y/N...” she whispers your name, trying to understand, scrunching up her dark brows, and something in you breaks, “What are you... what are you...?”
“Wanda?” a male voice calls from behind her shoulder, intertwined with the sound of loud rock and the sour scent of cigarette ash, “Who is it? It’s late.”
And such a voice, to your deepest misery, is recognizable to your ears as if it were part of a second nature cloistered within you, of course – you would never forget the light chest, the quiet contentment that carried you during your days of youth, when you were part of the school's literature reading group and the debate club. Her shy smile and his voice carried by his native Eastern European accent.
Your onetime girlfriend, and your former best friend, the immigrant neighbors who moved in next door to you during your freshman year of high school. And you remember kissing her open-mouthed in the backseat of their father's car (by that time she already tasted like cigarettes and tears) and drinking hot beer with him behind the local gas station.
“No fucking way, Y/N!”
Pietro Maximoff is the one who calls out your name, passing his twin sister and almost bumping into Wanda Maximoff's left shoulder, who is motionless like a marble statue, as if her soul has left the shell that is her beautiful, (but) empty body.
And wearing nothing but a plain skinny blouse and sporty shorts that do nothing to cover your bare thighs, you feel suddenly exposed in front of the pair of siblings who should have stayed far away, buried in your past along with all of Westview. You don't want them to see you.
You don't want her to see you.
“Dude, what are the chances of us finding you around here, huh? It's been a long time, what the hell! And we are neighbors again, just like before!” he kind of chuckles to himself at his own line, his accent already faded, “I mean, Wanda is your neighbor again. But hey, are you here for college? I remember you got that approval letter! NYU, right?”
“Yes, I...” you whisper, half babbling, blinking sleep and shock out of your lingering brain, “I... yeah...”
You look at him, who has now grown a beard around his chin and bleached his short hair to a platinum silver tone, once the owner of streaks in a profuse coffee-brown color like the pretty hue that adorns the long beams on her head (he seems to be more of a man's bearing than a boy's per se), and your troubled gaze migrates towards Wanda, who is the only one of the two Maximoff twins who truly comprehends the core of your dazed silence, matched by a remorseful look that she hides behind her hair as she turns her chin appallingly to the side – because she knows, you know, and he doesn't.
He never knew. Nobody ever knew. She made sure no one ever knew.
Just as no one ever knew you ran off with Pietro in the middle of the night to drink cheap beer and eat cheeseburgers behind the gas station, no one ever knew you kissed the taste of red-filtered cigarettes on Wanda's tongue in the back of their father's car.
ᗢ
“And why did she break up with you?”
It's Yelena Belova who asks you the very next morning, your coworker and classmate alike, a friend for life, as her elbows work back and forth with the wooden handle of the wet mop that slides across the linoleum flooring in one fluid, continuous action, because today is her day to mop the floor and only tomorrow is yours, according to the appointment on the calendar adjacent to the staff room wall at the back of the store.
The two of you wear polo shirts on your torsos and similar aprons tied around your waists, the pieces arranged in the same shades of black and green and, behind the glass counter, which in turn has an array of sweet and savory to go with a cup of coffee, you growl lamely, like a grizzly mad dog that doesn't want to let go of the tennis ball in its mouth.
It's still fifteen minutes (and counting) before the store opens to a new wave of morning clients, and you just don't want to talk about your ex-high school sweetheart so early in the morning, even after a long sip of fresh coffee. Not after seeing her before you, (still as stunning, as enchanting, still as detestable as she was almost three years ago), in a dreadful revelation that the noisy, irritating, maddening neighbor, all this time, was just Wanda; an ex-girlfriend behind the door who distanced you from her.
But Yelena looks at you with keen amber eyes that gleam with insistent curiosity, pushing you over the edge, and your cup of coffee with shots of warm milk suddenly looks more interesting than your blonde friend who mops the floor under her feet.
“Homophobic rich dad, 'it's not you, it's me', stuff like that,” you mutter grudgingly from behind your drink, before shrugging your shoulders as if in a bogus performance of indifference.
“I mean, at least that's what she told me. You know, by text message. Three damn days before our senior prom, when everything was ready for us to go together. Just a single text message of four, five lines, whatever.”
And you take another sip of coffee, which even though it's soft against the milk, now feels as bitter as a crumbling lump of earth against the face of your tongue.
“Ouch,” Yelena exclaims in a falsely offended tone that smacks of laughter, “What a bitch.”
“Don't even tell me,” you muss, not being able to mask the wrath still pulsing in your tone, staring at the dark plastic lid that covers your paper coffee cup, “Just one hell of a bitch.”
“But hey, strict rich dad and mean teenage daughter, huh? Such a cliché.” She still mops the floor as she talks.
“Yeah, I guess,” you take a sip of coffee, “Erik Lester, Lehnsherr, any shit like that, whatever. He's a businessman, does something involving magnets, I don't know. All I know is that he has, like, a lot of money.”
Yelena mutters in agreement even though she has no idea who this much-hated father figure is, silently indicating that she is setting the stage for the continuation of your speech.
“She only met him after her mother died when she and Pietro were about ten years old, when they had to leave Sokovia. And like, the guy is a real asshole, I won't deny it, and he and Wanda never had a good relationship from what she told me and from what I've seen and heard, either. Sometimes I could hear his screams through my bedroom window.”
And you remember her crying, so beautiful and so broken at such a young age, the makeup smeared around her eyeballs that glistened in stinging tears, a black thread of eyeliner trail running down her ever so sharp cheekbones her as she crept out in your bedroom window, into the comfort of your arms or into your fogged-up car, searching for cigarette smoke through the desert streets of the small town, during the nights lit by the neon of streetlights and headlights.
And then, in a rather bittersweet mental parallel, you realize that you could never sleep properly while in the presence of Wanda, who is a nocturnal animal, a source of red energy – like a dream that came to torment you, disappearing along with the first cracks of sun to rise in the morning.
“I always thought she did those things – the clothes, the music, the cigarettes – to piss him off. And she did, yeah. He was very pissed off about all these things. The two were always up in arms in that house. But if there was one thing she was afraid of, it was that he would find out she liked girls. She was terrified of coming out to him. So she didn't come out to anyone. She didn't… she never assumed me to anyone.”
You gird your lips in a straight line, ending the sentence in a den of resentment that weighs heavily on the tip of your tongue; both your forearms braced on the clear face of the counter's reinforced glass, the half-full coffee cup placed in the space between your wrists.
“I thought that because we were together for the entire senior year it was going to work out, you know, me and her.”
Yelena looks at you from behind the counter, and there's an air of pity that envelops her facial expression, but that you prefer to just ignore as you focus your gaze on the rings that line the length of your fingers. Wanda wears these too.
“That thing we had, even if it was just between the two of us, it all felt so… right. So natural. Like, we were going to graduate and leave, weren't we? There was no reason to give up like that. It was me and her. Just the two of us. But then... then came the time for the prom.”
You sigh, as in a vicious memory. For a minute your vision threatens to cloud with smothered tears, but you blink them back from your eyelashes.
“And she freaked out and ditched me. Went with that stupid Jarvis Stark guy, an English idiot, son of Erik's business partner or some shit like that. And, well, I left town after that. Moved on. And now here I am, making coffee for rude people who barely look me in the face and having to deal with you bothering me all morning.”
Your voice is teasing, wrapped in a mockery that befits the goofy grin that breaks at the corner of your lips, and the young blonde girl half-laughs at you, swinging her high ponytail to back of her head.
“And now she's your noisy neighbor. Call it romantic.” Yelena reminds you in a voice full of petulant innuendo in an irritating retort, raising her thick, dark brows to the middle of her forehead.
You grunt against the plastic lid of your coffee cup.
“Ugh, please don't remind me of that right now, I don't want to think about it anymore.”
You can almost feel the heavy, dark bags under your droopy eyes, the sleepless nights weighty on the bones of your spine – but the young blonde woman smirks, having stopped mopping the floor for a good few minutes now.
“I'm pretty sure that would make a great plot for a low-budget romcom, if you ask me. One of those twin actresses could play her in the movie. She kinda looks like them, doesn’t she?”
“Yelena!”
“But it's true!” your friend laughs at your earnest displeasure, “But hey, maybe you can sneak into her apartment for the night and make her make it up to you for the prom. Or those sleepless nights, if you know what I mean.”
You blink in lethargic action, looking towards her.
“I swear I'm going to spill coffee on the floor you just cleaned if you don't stop pissing me off, Belova.”
ᗢ
The empty, hard blue plastic laundry basket rests against the right side of your hip bone, slithering against the waistband of your baggy, light jeans as you descend step by step on the concrete stairs that lead toward the laundry room in the building, located on the underground floor of the condominium residence.
The weight of the tiring day of flawed sleep still weighs on the muscles of your back, but you know the neighbors will nag like macaws if your laundry spends another day that takes possession of the washing machine again.
But it's late at night, past ten o'clock, so there's no one to be found in front of the sextet of washing machines that are still side by side against a white wall, like cars parked in a large parking lot. Your sneakers bounce against the black-and-white checkered linoleum floor as your left index finger presses the face of the switch, turning on a half-eerie, icy white light that flashes once and then stops right above your head.
You move without circumlocution, nonchalantly, walking toward the middle machine, and open the circular hatch to take out your now-clean, though damp, clothes.
But along with your clothes, you notice, with a curious and uncertain look, that there seem to be other pants and shirts that don't actually make up your wardrobe – in a way, such pieces don't even match your personal style, and you certainly don't remember putting them there in the first place.
Just take a single pair of tall black cotton socks between your fingers and something catches your eye, like a candle burning in the dark. Your eyebrows crease in the middle of your forehead, like a big question mark.
And, with the tips of your curious left fingers, you make your way to the hollow interior of the large domestic appliance to pull out, from inside, a thin red lace panties like the petals of a rose that is certainly not yours, hovering with the tiny piece in front of your eyes in midair – but you soon know whose it is when you realize that you already know that lingerie, the identification hovers like a crimson fog in front of your brain.
“For fuck’s sake...”
It's a beautiful piece that you bring close to your face to check, a cotton adorned with well-crafted details in the fabric and that, in the past, would be nothing more than purely sexy, which would incite libidinous feelings that would spark into the your chest and between your legs; but something in you inflates, bursts and goes flying, because you know whose alabaster thighs are from which you yourself have already taken those same panties, only to head towards the center wet with liquids of pleasure.
And you squeeze the damn red lace between your fingers, in a fist shape, like you're choking a chicken's skinny neck. A gust of hot air is expelled between your nostrils like steam coming out of a factory chimney.
So you turn on your heels and march toward the stairs, your cheeks burning in a snarling amalgamation of smoldering shame and volcanic rage, and six flights are a blur that burns your calf muscle as you walk hard to the second floor of the building, crossing the empty hallway in evenly spaced footsteps, like a guided missile aimed at the door next to yours on the left.
The shiny metal of the numerals “1” and “9” attached to the center of the oak wooden door is what most attracts your solicitous attention when your closed fist knocks just above the handle; the round piece, large and gold, like a Christmas ornament the size of an apple or a clenched fist, you still holding the red garment in the palm of your hand placed to the side of your hip encased in the waistband of your jeans.
When footsteps are heard inside and Wanda comes to open the door, this time with her pretty face cleansed back to its natural state, devoid of the characteristic heavy makeup she usually puts on, it doesn't surprise you at all that she has a lit cigarette tucked between the fingers of her right hand, which has fingernails lacquered with a sober black polish that has peeled off the neatly cut and sanded ends.
“Y/N, what do you– do you have any idea what time it is, damn it?! It’s almost midnight!”
“What time is it? What time is it?! Look who's talking, for God's sake!”
When you brandish it with your hand, the underwear wobbles and it's only then that you remember that you still have it in your possession, and that seems to be able to irritate you even more.
“And is this yours by any chance?!” Holding the thin red strap just pressed between the tips of your forefinger and thumb, you lift the panties up to her face.
There's a curiously surprised frown in a flash of white skin between her dark brows, a light of disagreement circling the jade green of Wanda's eyes as they gaze at the underwear presented to her by you.
“What– what do you think you're doing with my panties, you creep?!” The accusatory tone in her voice, curled in thick cigarette smoke, is enough to pop a nerve in your neck.
“Creep?!” you whimper in thunderous rage, “I’m the goddamn creep?! You’re the one who put your underwear to wash with my clothes, you’re the creep in this whole situation! You creep!”
“What–?” Wanda looks at you like you're just insane, going into a snarky defensive pose, “I–I didn't do that!”
“Oh, of course,” your voice drips with angry sarcasm, “Your lingerie just decided to come out of the other washing machine and into the one I'm using. Seriously, Wanda, you've been better at lying before, I swear–”
“Look Y/N, I may have been confused, but I just moved here–”
“I don't,” your voice rises to match hers, ending whatever now-finished excuse that would come out of Wanda's mouth, “I don't wanna fucking know. I don’t care! Just– just take this and please don't bother me anymore!”
And there's barely a window that takes in the time it takes for the young woman with the jade eyes to plan with her brain an answer so her mouth can modulate it to you, because you crumple the red garment against her chest hidden inward the worn material of a loose-fitting band shirt that had faded to a tawny gray (that she had once sworn it was black), before turning around and, without giving her undue satisfaction, you head back toward the stairs that lead to the lower floor.
But you're barely ten or fifteen paces away from her door before Wanda's voice echoes across the hall, reverberating through the walls into your eardrums, through your muscles and your bones.
“Very mature, you asshole! How fucking old are you, five?!”
And you're just done dealing with her shit.
“Fuck you!” you bark like a shot in a game of table tennis and, without looking back, lift your elbow to your ribs, holding up the middle finger of your right hand for Wanda to see and take offense.
A shocked gasp comes from afar, but before she can even respond to you in a burst of rather naughty insults, there's the click of another door that opens at the end of the hall, and a third surly neighbor appears in a guttural rage as he engages in an unseemly bickering with Wanda ("It's late, shut the fuck up!" and "Go mind your own fucking business!" is the least that reaches your ears) while you, in full of silence and without giving much thought to the exchange of sharp curses between the young girl and an old gray-haired man from apartment sixteen, just turns the corner and walks down the stairs, trotting back to the laundry room.
Your right foot in your white sneaker taps arrhythmic to a distressed beat on the checkered linoleum floor, as you wait for the dryer to drying your clothes, your unflinching gaze staring at the silver device as it emits a round hum, your forearms interlaced down your chest, pressed against your rib cage, your shoulders stiffening in a recurring muscular tension from the episode of anger still fresh in your body.
When carefree footsteps echoes down the stairs, you don't stare toward the door of the laundry room because you only know who's approaching when the uncompromising scent of tobacco, smoke and strawberry moisturizer catches your nostrils, prompting a fearless grunt and an avid eye roll on your part.
Wanda carries a red plastic laundry basket with her, and doesn't exchange a word with you as she takes her clean clothes from the washing machine you've just used.
“It was a mistake, you know.”
For a moment, you think she's talking about your relationship. After all, it makes sense to imagine that this assumption is correct; your relationship with her was indeed a mistake, you know and imagine that she thinks so too. But her voice comes in a few seconds within the silence interspersed between the groans of the dryer machine, and she seems even half embarrassed as she doesn’t look directly at you, prickled into an almost intelligible thread.
You remain in terse silence as she gives it another try.
“It was an accident Y/N, that's all.”
But there's not a single answer that comes from you, and you don't even fix your proud gaze on Wanda, even though, with your nerves already chilled and your head clear away from the drowning fog of anger that seemed to have caught you in blind rage, you have realized that you have been quite unnecessarily rude to your new neighbor, your old lover.
“What do you want me to say, huh?” she claims your gaze, staring sideways at your profile, “That I'm sorry? Even by a stupid accident? All right, look, I apologize. I’m sorry. Now can you at least look at me, Y/N?”
But no, you don't look at her. And her shoulders sag in a sure sign of defeat.
When the machine finally dries your clean garments that smell sweetly of a softener pleasing to the senses, you pick them up, fold them, and place them in your blue hamper without uttering a word to make your actions light. And, walking behind Wanda carrying the basket on your hip, nonchalantly as if the girl in the cherry-red denim shorts were just an intangible ghost, you leave the laundry room—her gaze burns into the sore muscles of your back as you do.
ᗢ
Your nights are spent listening to loud music and smelling of toasted tobacco, and it's been a while since you've been able to watch TV anymore because of the loud noise from the neighbor next door. Maybe she's playing a tantrum, maybe she has no idea how life works in an apartment complex. But even Loki is more skittish by the lack of sleep that prompts his already grumpy nature.
The long scratch mark that grows angry red on your right forearm, towards the inside of your elbow, says a lot about how you and your cat have been having a rather toxic relationship on the feline’s part.
The early afternoon is engulfed by a partially warm climate, with a mild temperature, but even so, you chose to grab a sweater from your hanger, just before leaving the house early enough not to run into Wanda in the hallway, as had happened on a few unfortunate occasions since then – once when you went to meet a Thai food delivery boy and she was taking out the trash, and another time when you were leaving for work and she was arriving from whatever she'd spent the night before, looking a little woozy as she tried (and failed) to unlock her apartment door.
Carrying your backpack on your shoulders, your elbows tucked into your ribs and both your hands raised, squeezing the outline of your fingers adorned by a handful of silver rings through the dark straps. You walk in measure with Yelena's footsteps, who treads to your right, dressed in a stylish yellow flannel coat crisscrossed with gray and white stripes, and Kate Bishop, the tall girl with dark hair tied back from the of her head, who comes close to your left shoulder – the three of you heading towards the classroom befitting your third period Wednesday schedule.
“Man, I can't believe Nat actually became a cop,” is what Kate says in an indignant tone, addressed to Yelena.
“I mean, like, she's your sister, you know? And you’re so– so, so politically engaged! Besides, you are Russians, you should know about these things! Isn't your dad like, an anti-cops die-hard communist or something?”
“That literally says absolutely nothing,” Yelena answers her crookedly, wrinkling the skin on her nose, “Your mom is a goddamn CEO and yet you don't see me charging you about all the capitalist shit she does in her office.”
“But is different!” Kate exclaims back, almost offended, “My mom isn't like, that Howard Stark guy or something. She's just—”
“Rich,” spits the blonde girl, “She’s rich. She’s filthy rich. So yeah, she's kinda like him.”
“It’s different!”
“It's no different, Kate, I'm sorry,” you finally say to the girl in the purple blouse and ripped gray jeans, who just grunts in a pained, giving up response.
But it's when you turn the corner of a hallway that Kate turns to you with a certain air of curiosity that hovers over her actions.
“But hey Y/N,” she calls your name, and you turn your head towards her deep-brown eyes, “Is it true?”
“What exactly is true, Kate?” you blink in confusion towards her.
“That a crazy ex of yours moved in next door to you.”
One of your eyebrows rises in dubious ambiguity. You don't remember saying anything to Kate concerning Wanda, nor your disastrous relationship with the said Sokovian girl.
“How...?” but your train of thought soon traces towards Yelena, your confidant who lately is so close to Kate, who is also unnaturally quiet beside you, “Wait, did you tell her, Yelena?!”
“W-what? Sooner or later she would find out about it!” as the blonde girl shrugs her shoulders into the fabric of her yellow coat, you let a disgruntled grunt escape your lips.
Great, you allow yourself to think in an exhausted mindset, that's just great. What you most needed now is for people to know about your intimate life.
Not that the young Bishop heiress isn't a dear friend of yours, but it just so happens that you've only met her a few months ago, and it's not customary for you to open your heart to someone you're not so close to – for example, Yelena herself, who you've known for almost two years only became a close figure of your in the last eight months or so spent in each other’s company.
“I mean, everybody kinda knows that now...”
Kate says in a tiny voice, but it's not low enough to go unnoticed by your hearing or, for that matter, even by Yelena's ears, who scolds the other girl, exasperating a loud “Dude!” that echoes through the entire hall.
Your hands certainly yearn to strangle your friend in the coat who walks close to your right shoulder, to squeeze her neck which is adorned by thin and stylish chains in a good taste for fashion, but your fingers are content to just hold on enfolding the backpack straps that circle your shoulders, as your chin turns toward Yelena.
“Who else did you tell it to, huh?” but when the silence is lasting, your patience that is already running short insists on pressing the girl with the white backpack, “Who else knows about it, Yelena?”
“Well,” she starts, a little embarrassed, a little hesitant.
“Like, first of all, in my defense, it's not my fault you're an antisocial weirdo who doesn't go out to drink with us! But you know how it is, we went out with Natasha and Peter and Kamala this weekend and we went to this Irish pub that I keep saying you'll like, and I may or may not have had a shot or two more than the usual and, well... they started asking about you, well... and shit happens.”
“Shit happens,” you repeat in a half-tired, half-incredulous tone of voice, “Shit happens, sure.”
“Sure,” she repeats, before quickly adding a few more names to the list, “I mean, that Quill guy from the football team showed up with his girlfriend too, and Carol arrived later with Maria and Darcy, and then one of them called Jane and Brunnhilde, and then—”
“Ugh, okay, I get it, please don't continue,” you grunt, squeezing your eyelids together in pain, suddenly feeling several eyes turning to you as you cross the hall on a walk of shame, “Everyone knows.”
“Yeah, kinda everyone knows, yeah,” Yelena's tone is soaked in contrite agreement, and she shrugs her shoulders that carry the straps of her white backpack, “Sorry, dude.”
“No, it's okay,” you force plastic optimism out of your mouth, imagining that if you say it out loud the words will come true, “Everything's perfectly fine.”
Over their shoulders, Kate and Yelena exchange a worried glance.
But a few minutes pass after such a conversation had passed through the halls of the university with the other two girls dressed in the yellow coat and the purple jacket, and you can barely get your brain to focus on the mental activity of understanding the words uttered by Ms. Harkness's mouth, who dramatically cries out to the entire class of thirty or forty students as she gestures in a Shakespearean manner with her hands, waving her thick, long brown hair back and forth as she does – she was always a dramatic type, despite her genuine sympathy for students of her liking.
And even later that day is when you find yourself in the cafeteria's bathroom, rinsing the soap foam that lathers your palms under running tap water, when the door of a booth on your right opens, and you hadn't even realized there was anyone else there but yourself.
And your rib bones feel like they want to rip through the tissue in your lungs as you look up from the sink, only to realize that the figure in the open red sweatshirt and black miniskirt is Wanda, heading for a sink next to the left to the one you use to then squeak the record between her fingers and start the action of washing her own hands of matte black enamel nails.
You just want to blink and realize that it's an illusion, a mirage, a product of your twisted mind that hasn't been sleeping well and that you're certainly thinking too much about her, who is now your neighbor.
But she doesn't go away even as your eyelids open and close, once, twice, three times, and a hot, tangled thread rises from the muscle of your shoulders to the outline of your neck, crisscrossing your cheekbones and the tips of your ears.
The prickly anger that bristles your skin is like a hard, prickly grip around your throat, and a lump of flesh and gall weaves inside your larynx. The tips of your clipped nails scratch the palm of your left hand a little harder than necessary; the girl standing next to you is like a spark, and you are like a haystack.
And the ember burns loudly, almost even emanating smoke from the top of your head, as the melodiously unassuming voice in her usual low pitch echoes through the floor and the tiled walls.
“There's been word out there that your crazy ex moved in next door to you, did you know?” says Wanda, still looking at her wet, soapy hands.
You try to bite the words before they come out, but it's inevitable that you'll respond in the same tone.
“And what are you even doing here to begin with, huh? Have you become a stalker or something? That's kinda sad, even for you.”
And she half-laughs, which causes the blood in your body to leak to your head, but also to other rather unwanted locations in your lower organs.
“People have the right to study at this university. It's not all about you, Y/N,” you rub your hands together harder, “I mean, unless it's about your crazy ex. Then I think it's about you like, for real.”
And your tongue is quicker to rise to the roof of your mouth than your brain is to censor whatever it is you're about to regurgitate in the form of an insult, when the quick response comes in a reactionary backhand to the girl with the jacket of a deep shade of red like wine.
“Well, those rumors aren't even true. Because, you know, to have a crazy ex-girlfriend I would need to have had an official, public relationship, and as far as I can remember, I've never had that with anyone,” your saliva is bitter between your teeth, “So I don't think I need to worry about these rumors. It’s just gossip that everyone will eventually forget, anyways.”
You turn off the faucet on your use and Wanda does the same to hers, but neither of you moves to dry your hands or even head out of the bathroom. She looks at you instead, but you only find your own exhausted eyes in your reflection in front of the mirror placed on the wall in front of you.
“So you didn't have anyone,” Wanda says, her emerald irises fixedly contouring your jawbone, “After me.”
The thread of anger stretches from your stomach to your heart, and you still don't look at her as your curled fingers grip the oval edges of the white porcelain sink. She doesn't deserve satisfaction from you; after all, if you were never officially a couple, if there was never a title before the promise, it's all her fault, it fell on her, it starts and ends with her.
“That's literally none of your business,” you mutter under your breath, but you kind of hesitate a bit as she takes a step toward you in her biker boots that wrap around her ankles clad in a pair of black high tights.
“You didn't have anyone after me. Besides me. Did you, Y/N?”
And you turn your nose towards her, only to find a pair of verdant irises that lie dark as moss, a kind of possession that weaves through the abyssal dark puddles that are her dilated pupils, and the black smoky eyeshadow makes her retinas glow like two gemstones reflected by a beam of light in a darkened room.
Wanda is like a black hole that draws you into a dangerous magnetism, engulfing you like a supernova explosion.
And something primal inside of you kind of likes that, kind of craves for it, for her monopoly over you, for the exclusivity that's been maintained since the last time you two saw each other, three years ago, back in your hometown. Secretly you wonder if she hasn't had anyone else after you either, and you kind of hope the answer is a big fat no.
After all, if you're still hers, she's still yours too.
“Has anyone else ever touched you like I did?”
You swallow hard, the inside of your throat hardening when as close to her as you are, your shoulders deflating a little into your dark sweatshirt as the scent of strawberry moisturizer and toasted tobacco clogs up your nostrils, spilling Wanda's red into your bloodstream. She looks like an animal ready to devour you and you're not sure if you're going to let her do it or not, but you tend to think that yes, you will.
“Has anyone else licked you on the corner of your mouth before actually kissing you, because they know it turns you on?”
You swallow the still air in your throat.
“Did anyone else run their hands down the sides of your neck before holding your hair?”
She takes a step toward you, and you take another step back.
“Has anyone else,” her voice is a low, dangerous whisper, “Bitten the side of your rib before they went down on you? With their tongue slow and soft at first and accelerating as your moans get more desperate when you ask for more?”
You want to kiss her. Your hands tingle to cup the sides of her jaw and pull her face down so your lips meet in midair, and she kisses you the way she knows you like. As you've done before, as she once wanted. But then you remember why you hate her as much as you want to kiss her, and it's like a reality check. And a new gust of angry air ignites inside your chest.
“It's none of your business, Wanda,” you finally say through gritted teeth, steadying the bridge that connects your intense gazes. You are annoyed and turned on, and you just know that she will always be your undoing.
“And I don't owe you any fucking satisfaction. I don't need to remind you that it was you who broke up with me via texts, do I? You're the one who dumped me, not the other way around. I don't owe you shit.”
A guilty hesitation crosses her gaze, which taking slashes of blame, quickly turns away from you to stare at the sink pipe on the right side of your hip; Wanda seems to shrink a little, wilting, squeezing the folds of her ringed fingers through the single strap of the crossbody bag that spills down her torso.
“That’s not true, Y/N, I… I– I didn’t…” she muss, in a low voice soaked in massive regret, stepping back a step, “It’s not like that, you just… you don't… you don’t understand–”
“I don't understand what, huh, Wanda? I don’t understand what?!"
Your voice rises an octave, and something stuck inside you for the past two years, like a bottle of champagne that pops a cork, just starts to flow, pouring out of your chest in a loud, painful confession and just so, so purely angry.
“That you got tired of playing with my feelings and decided to finally be the perfect little girl your father wanted you to be? That you decided to pose as a straight girl for one night, hanging on that jerk Jarvis' arm to be the perfect couple with a bright future after graduation? That all our plans, our confessions, our dreams were nothing but a hobby for you, a toy to play until you got sick of me and threw me away when you just felt like it?”
She looks on the verge of tears, her waterline glistening in crystalline pools of liquid embarrassment and her bottom lip threatening to quiver, and you barely notice when hot strands of bottled up feelings begin to leak down your cheeks, dripping towards the contour of your chin.
“Because if that's what I don't understand, then yeah, I really don't. I don't understand how you had the courage to be so coward to hurt me and break my heart in that mean way, when the only thing I ever did for you was take you in, Wanda! I took care of you! I listened to you, I dedicated myself to you, I gave you my heart, I fucking loved you! And that's how you repaid me, because you're a walking fucking problem and nothing will ever, ever satisfy you!"
And there's a sharp, deafening silence that follows after that, rumbling in your eardrums. And a veil of reality falls both over you and her; after all, whether indirectly or not, at no time had you confessed to Wanda that in a way, even with the immaturity worthy of late adolescence, you loved her as much as was possible at that time.
She looks hurt by your words, her eyes a gloomy, sad green, her hands tightening on the strap of her bag. And even if you've spent three long years believing that you really wanted to harm her, once you've done it, you don't feel the way you should. It's not satisfactory at all, because it hurts you too. It hurts so, so much.
“Y/N...” she whispers, but there's nothing more to say after that, so your name just hangs and dies in the air around her.
You pant, inflating and deflating heavily with your chest as if you've just run the course of a long marathon. And she looks at you like a shy child who's done something stupid, and it only takes one blink for a drop of black makeup to run down her pale, sharp cheekbones, the green of the irises now as bright as the grass in the spring pastures or in Botticellian paintings.
Her tearful face should feel like your masterpiece, not your leading lament.
“Wanda, I…” you whisper, wanting to say something you don't know, wanting to undo what you've already done, “I... I didn't mean..."
She seems to take a gulp of air to part her peachy lips and start a whole new sentence when the bathroom entrance door opens and an agitated group of chatty girls enters, oblivious to the heavy atmosphere established between you and Wanda. You look at her who doesn't look at you.
With the back of your hand, you quickly sweep the tears away from your own cheeks. And, picking up your backpack that is on the floor, placed next to the sink, you brush past Wanda and head towards the door without saying another word to the young lady in the red sweatshirt, who looks just as broken as you do.
All you have to do is turn one corner to the thick tears begin to pour down the warm skin of your face.
ᗢ
The movement of warm-weather morning firstfruits is a little slow, even still, with the occasional businessperson in a suit or tired student stopping by to enter the store before the clock strikes nine in the morning, to resort to the necessary high doses of caffeine and only then can start their day with a temporary and bogus simulation of a burst of energy.
And it's when Yelena says something about needing to use the restroom, when there's no customer to attend to or even a soul sitting at the tables just to use the free WiFi, that you decide that checking a few emails in your phone's inbox will do no harm to your start of the day.
After all, you've already scrubbed the damn mop on the floor so much that the linoleum now looks like a mirror under your feet, and you've changed three times the napkins that didn't really need to be discarded and changed.
And you know well that you did, though, to take your mind away from the memory of the night before; of the loud, heavy music blasting through the dividing wall of your room with Wanda's, in a failed attempt to stifle the sobbing cry of the neighbor apartment, who kept your brain alert throughout the night, until tiredness won over by the fatigue of your muscles (or maybe her muscles first), allowing the both of you, so close and yet so far away, to fall asleep together, at the same time, each thinking of the other as you lost consciousness.
A few minutes pass, however, before the distinctive tinkling of the small bell above the front door engulfs your attention away from your cellphone screen, and your rehearsed speech of welcome comes almost as an involuntary response that fills your mouth, before the most genuine of smiles slip through the pulp of your lips as braided ginger hair comes into your field of view, clasped in a heavy, handsome leather jacket.
“Nat, hi!” you greet her, Yelena's older sister, and she smirks as she walks toward you from across the counter.
You always liked her and she always liked you.
“Hey, Y/N,” Natasha looks around as if scanning the area, before turning her piercing green gaze back to your face, never missing the tiny smile on her full lips, hands shoved in the back pockets of the dark jeans that she wears around her toned legs.
“Yelena left you here to deal with those grumpy people all alone, huh? That suck. Guess I'm gonna have to rap her knuckles for a change.”
“Nah, it’s okay. She went to the restroom,” you smile, “I guess.”
“You guess, huh?” Natasha raises an orange brow, “Well, it must have been. She was never good at holding her bladder, you know? I mean, seriously, there was this time when we were kids back in Ohio where she was playing on the slide and then my mom—”
“Hey, don't you even dare to start it!” Yelena's voice comes from the back in a protesting exclamation, before the young blonde girl appears, tying her leaf-green apron around her waist.
“And may I know what you're doing here, huh? Don't you have, like, cop stuff to do around, officer? There must be some kitten stuck in a tree in Central Park or some sucker in a manhole in need of help.”
“I think this is a fire department thing,” you comment, and in return Yelena blinks in disbelief in your direction.
And the older sister lets out a lame giggle through her nose, expelling a gust of warm air through her nostrils.
“I was passing by and I decided to come around just to annoy you, 'Lena” says Natasha, half-laughing, prompting a roll of the eyes on the part of the youngest sister, “But I'll take the opportunity to ask Y/N to make me an espresso. You know, her coffee is really good.”
And when Natasha's voluptuous gaze falls on you, the corner of her lips twitching a little, there's a pang that nudges your stomach and makes your lungs inflate and deflate with warm air evaporating off your skin.
Natasha is a few years older than you (and therefore also more experienced), and you are well aware that she is a very stunning woman, who is constantly enveloped in a simple aura of sensuality, which spontaneous flirtation seems to be like a second nature to her. And it feels good, it's really warming to know that someone like her looks at someone like you in such a way. Even if, deep down, your brain is aware that your heart doesn't beat for her, and never will.
“For God's sake Natasha, the coffee is made by a damn machine, literally every time it's the same thing,” Yelena mutters crookedly under her grumpy breath, “Just get a room, damn it, this is a public place.”
“Come on, 'Lena, you don't need to be jealous,” and you know it's now nothing more than a sibling bickering, a healthy petulance that ends up trapping you in the middle of the situation that leans towards comic, “You're the lucky one who has to see Y/N every day, not me.”
And you take it easy, barely able to suppress a round of giggles when Yelena looks like she wants to jump over the counter and kick her sister in the face.
“Listen, get the hell out of here, go away! Go! Go! Go! You're not getting no fucking coffee anymore—!”
But the entrance bell jingles a second time as the glass door opens and someone enters the establishment.
And the second time is worse than the first, because all you need to do is glance over Natasha's left shoulder and a pair of emerald eyes other than the rookie cop's eyes connect with yours, like a knot tied in mid-air, two magnets that attract and repel each other. The soft smile plastered on your lips begins to fade and then disappears into a dry line and a wisp of skin between your brows.
And you just can't believe it's Wanda who's there, like an obsessive spirit or even an obsessed stalker, even though your apartment is just a block away from the coffeeshop, even though there's a cozy bookstore across the street and, if you hadn't paid so much attention to Natasha, you would have noticed the blood-red dress, so delicate against the imposing black jacket; the clothes dressed in the familiar silhouette that had entered the store on the sidewalk opposite your work environment.
“Such a psycho…” Yelena muss for only Natasha to hear, but you do the same and believe Wanda does too, because she looks hesitant as she gazes at your uniformed friend, standing beside you behind the counter.
You blink, and so does Wanda, still standing in the doorway.
The atmosphere that sets in is palpable, and the two sisters, then aware of your unfortunate situation with your neighbor-ex-girlfriend-not-really-a-girlfriend, exchange looks that only two people with a connection like theirs can exchange.
And then, you turn your stiff shoulders toward the coffee machine, stepping away from the compact glass counter, “I–I'll make your espresso, Nat.”
The clatter of the machine seems to be deafening when the silence is thick and even the sound of a penny falling to the floor would echo through the entire store, and the sudden sour smell of coffee sends your stomach into a wave of nausea you don't quite know where it's coming from, but it's here to stay and, in such a way, you feel like you want to cry.
The acerbic regret of harming her still eats you into your muscles and your bones.
Fitting the lid on the tall clear plastic glass, you place the drink across the face of the counter, in front of Natasha, who gives you a complacent look, in a green so different from the green that stares at you from behind her.
“Here it is,” you say in a rather mechanical voice.
Natasha takes her wallet from the back pocket of her tight dark jeans and places a bill that exceeds the stipulated amount next to the glass, holding you back with her hand when you get her the change. Everything is very vague, and the cozy, playful aura that once enveloped the three of you left the store as soon as Wanda opened that door.
“See you later, sis,” Natasha says to Yelena, who stares at Wanda like an angry guard dog, before turning back to you, “And you… take care, honey.”
There's a deliberately deferred squeeze of the red-haired woman's hand by the delineation of your own fingers caged in rings, and even as Natasha turns onto her back, her single long red braid slipping between her shoulder blades hidden inside her leather jacket, pouring along her spine, you know she shoots a hard look at Wanda, who flinches as she passes close to her shoulder – even though the two of them have never touched, it’s as if Natasha has bumped her shoulder against Wanda’s.
The temperature seems to drop, and the Sokovian girl takes a step forward, toward the counter – her dark hair looks beautiful even in a messy bun on top of her head, and you really have to hold back before uttering that compliment out loud. She doesn't seem to be sleeping well, and even layers of dark makeup can't hide the bags under her tired eyes. You thought it would bring you some kind of comfort, but really you just want to hug her.
"Can I help you?" Yelena is the one who takes the initiative, even if her hard tone doesn't at all befit the implications of her rehearsed store clerk phrase.
"I..." Wanda starts, opens her mouth, closes it for a second and then opens it again, "I was going to order an iced tea, but now I... I... Y/N," she then looks at you, “Can I talk to you? Please."
No, you want to say, not at all. I'm ashamed that I said those things to you. But Wanda's gaze is as intense as Yelena's. And you let out a lame sigh, squinting in disbelief towards your own thoughtless actions, before turning to your coworker who is next to your left shoulder.
Fuck it.
“I'm gonna… I'm gonna take a break,” you announce, before returning your gaze to Wanda, who seems to hide gratification beneath the hesitation in her eyes.
Yelena, on the other hand, seems pretty discredited with your words.
“Dude, it's like eight-thirty in the morning,” she reminds you, “And you're going to spend your break time with… this?”
The tone is displeased as she looks at your ex high school sweetheart, who then just looks away. You just shake your head in embarrassment.
“Yelena, please, just… please,” you look nonsensically tired at the young blonde in uniform, “Not now.”
And Yelena looks like she wants to say something, but she stops before she does, because looking from you to Wanda, two restless spirits, two broken bodies, she understands. Something about her understands, even if she doesn't like what she understands. And she shakes her head, following your figure that goes around the counter after untying your apron and, shadowing Wanda closely, just leaves the store behind you.
The bell jingles up from the door.
ᗢ
Leaning against the brick wall of the alley beside the cafeteria, a cigarette smoldering in its blazing tip, breathing in puffs of smoke, Wanda stares silently at her own feet—her faux-leather boots dark, tall, and worn. You, leaning against the damp wall opposite the one she leans in, watch her and look away every time she tries to engage her eyes with yours. It's like a game where whoever speaks first loses, and you and Wanda are just too competitive to let go.
You know there's no need to wonder why Wanda's sudden arrival has upset you so much, still a little remorseful for your explosive outburst in the university restroom as you are; but even as displeased as you claim to be to yourself, you also feel, in a way, happy and exultant, a comfortable lull warming the inside of your chest that you kind of really try to fight against, but it's a losing battle and you know it.
And, as engrossed in your own head as you are, you don't even notice the red specter that, like the devil himself, looks your way as if she might rip your soul out of your chest, the strawberry scent wafting through the alley with cigarettes that only Wanda Maximoff can squander.
With your hands tucked into the back pockets of your dark jeans, you just say nothing towards her.
“Do you... want a cigarette?”
Her voice catches your attention, but for a few seconds, you find yourself bereft of words that are capable of responding to it. When you lift your chin to look at her, though, both of your dark gazes are linked together in a single train of thought, Wanda too hesitant, you too uncertain.
She, with dark makeup, has the nicotine stick between the pulps of her profuse lips, and you watch her through the whole process that unfolds through her smoking the cigarette; you notice when her mouth is parted to receive the smoke, revealing flashes of white, opalescent teeth, and you also notice how a thin bed of glossy gloss ends up smearing the yellow filter, like a midnight kiss exchanged before imminent death.
Wanda blinks playfully at you, still waiting for an answer, her lepidopteran eyelashes fluttering in mascara, before leaning her head toward your gaze. Her sudden proximity shooting lightning bolts to your stomach, because now the alley seems so tight and her soft skin feels so touchable.
You stare at her for a few seconds, pupils dilated in a vortex of darkness, before shaking your head as you move your neck from side to side.
The thick smoke leaves Wanda's peach lips not long after you do. And then you remember doing it with her, cigarette after cigarette, between kisses and touches, the moans engulfed by dawn in the dark corners of Westview, where no prying eye could have realized that you loved Wanda Maximoff.
“No, thanks,” you raise your right hand hesitantly, “I stopped a while ago. I was starting to run out of breath to just walk up the stairs.”
You think she knows that you only started, years ago, because of her, in order to impress her, to be able to approach her the night you visited her house because of Pietro and, not knowing how to properly initiate a conversation with a pretty girl, you asked for a cigarette because you once saw her smoking behind the bleachers; she knows you never liked the taste and that you coughed more than you held the noxious smoke into your lungs and lied that you liked it, prompting an avid wave of laughter from her.
Then she shrugs, resolving to herself that she won't press the point. For a few minutes, present is the silence erected between you like a massive wall. Wanda puff on her cigarette, and after that, you sigh.
“You wouldn't order iced tea,” you say in a neutralized voice, “You've seen me in uniform before, in the hallway. You know I work there.”
And she kind of laughs, unsurprised, through thick cigarette smoke.
"Well, I do. But I really want an iced tea, just so you know,” there's an air of good humor in her speech, even as her icy eyes gaze at the floor between her boots.
The silence descends again for half a second, until it's pierced once more by you.
“I'm sorry, by the way,” is a semi-whisper that crosses the alley, “For the things I said to you in the bathroom that day. Or the things people are saying around about you. It's been a while since all that shit happened and it's not… it's not fair that you're being held accountable for this teenage bullshit. Breakups... breakups happen, I guess. You weren't obligated to stay with me.”
She looks at you, her eyes glowing the color of guilt-ridden jade.
“But I didn't have to break up with you in such a shitty way, also,” and then, a sigh comes in a cage of smoke, “I… I think I deserve some of your treatment. I'm the one who should apologize. It was stupid of me, it wasn’t… it wasn't right what I did to you, Y/N.”
You compress your lips into a line because you know it's true, but you don't want to start a new intrigue right after finishing another one.
“Well, you could have done it any number of ways that would have been better, in fact,” you shrug, “But we were seventeen, Wanda. I was an idiot, you were an idiot. And I understand it was hard for you, you know… with Erik, and stuff.”
The mention of her father's name seems to make her shift uncomfortably in her clothes, the dark jacket that covers the short dress of reddish fabric seeming abruptly cramped and exposed as she seems to shrink in on herself, lifting the walls that have kept you away. And then she smokes, closing her eyes, like she used to when he made her cry.
You see the smoke coming in and out of her pearly mouth, and you feel kind of nostalgic to see her like this, so vulnerable and transparent, feeling everything but saying nothing.
“Yeah, it was really hard,” there's an eerie tone that creeps into her voice, the moss green of her gaze seeming to carry a baleful hue, “But it wasn't fair that I just threw all that shit at your back every time that I was sad. But… that's in the past, right? It's no longer a problem I have to deal with, let alone you."
And she doesn't seem to want to talk about it anymore, so you don't bring it up again. A car passes on the street and a dog barks at a bicycle rider. When the cigarette she smokes finally runs out, she stubs out the butt against the brick wall and lets a limp sigh escape her nose.
“I think I'll go home now… I don't want to take your break time anymore,” and she smiles, albeit minimally, “Your tired face on me is starting to make me feel guilty.”
“Does that mean you're going to stop listening to Deftones all night long? Because that’s kinda depressing,” the air of laughter doesn't escape you, and she shyly lets the smile grow on the contour of her lips.
“Well… at first it wasn't on purpose, but then I just kind of kept doing it to get your attention,” she scrunches with the skin of her nose, “On second thought, it wasn't my best idea. Sorry about that. It was a stupid thing to do.”
“Fine,” you smile small, even if that still won't make your morning tiredness go away entirely, “I'll charge you more for your iced tea and then we'll call it even, Maximoff.”
“Are you still going to get me an iced tea?” Wanda looks in your direction and, a little awkwardly, you nod.
“You want one, don't you?” you look at her, “Still like black tea with lemonade?”
“Yeah,” she smiles, “Yeah, I do.”
ᗢ
The taut muscular tension radiating from the top of your spine fades along with the heavy bags of skin under your eyes, and the days gone by become bearable, even pleasant, as the weeks that follow as a result of the conversation and the apologies exchanged between you and Wanda.
In part, of course, you suppose your light mood is related to the fact that there is no longer a sound of drums and guitars that seems to want to breach your bedroom wall, once sleep is invited back to inhabit your bedding, cradling you in a necessary embrace that is only undone again when Loki bites your foot because he's hungry in the middle of the night. As if the recurring spark igniting within your filled chest could even be overlooked, anyway.
You then have the luxury of unconcernedly greeting Wanda with an exchange of affable smiles for the expected times you bump into each other in the hallway of the apartment complex you live in or the campus of the university where you both study, and now and then she goes to the coffeeshop where you work during her free time in the afternoons, carrying with her some excuse to buy an iced black tea with lemonade to sip along a classic book you know she likes to read.
“Hey sucker, you're drooling. Stop looking before I report you for public nuisance.”
Yelena mutters beside you as you find yourself staring at the girl in the black miniskirt sitting so charmingly at the table in front of the cashier, who then looks at you in a splash of emerald-green irises over the top of the hardcover book, allowing herself to hide a slight smile behind the full pages.
The skin on your cheeks and the tips of your ears glows in deep pinks when you tell your co-worker to “shut the fuck up”, because you just know there's no way to look away from Wanda's pale, exposed thighs that are draped over each other down the table – her kneecaps slightly turned toward you, almost as if purposefully put in that position just for you to look at.
One night when you came in from yet another extra shift at work, Wanda was having a hard time getting the key in her door while she had bags slung all over her forearm extensions, and you immediately helped her carry the groceries into her house, being then rewarded with a can of cherry Coke (her preferred drink), and a small peck ghosted on your left cheek that felt like an electrical charge against your epidermis, stirring something up inside you.
You exchanged your phone numbers later when you asked her to feed Loki for another extra shift and gave her your spare apartment key to do so.
Yelena, of course, made fun of you for grinning so kindheartedly when the notification came in for a photo of Wanda holding Loki against her lap like a grumpy little baby, but you just didn't bother to care about your best friend's continuous teasing that went on until late of the night. The following afternoon, Wanda sat with her tray on the table with you, the Belova girl and Kate during your lunch period at the cafeteria.
“Oh yeah, Y/N was part of the debate club when we were in high school,” she says with her cheek resting on her open right palm, prompting a good-natured eye roll on your part, “It was cute.”
“I bet it was, indeed,” Yelena replies, in a voice filled with hints of mockery, her mouth full of chewed apple, “So cute, little Y/N!”
“Dude, just shut up,” you grumble awkwardly from behind your glass of orange juice.
“I bet you guys were a really cute couple though,” but when Kate says that, drinking from the straw of her grape juice box, the atmosphere around the table is a little weird.
You and Wanda look at each other, and it even amazes you when you see that she can't help but express a reserved smile that goes far back, back to her adolescence.
The succeeding weekend, when Pietro came to the big city to visit his sister, he didn't accept less than a drunken company in your presence, which, according to him, would bring back the flame of the good old days; and it was late into the night, when the young boy in the bluish blouse (the brown roots of his hair sampled in the strain of dyed gray locks, cut short) pointed an accusing drunken left finger that trekked from you to Wanda and from Wanda to you.
“You know, it's a shame you two never dated back in high school,” he grumbles, before tucking the neck of his beer bottle between his parched lips, “I always thought you guys were, like, super alike. And Wanda kept saying she thought you were super hot, Y/N, seriously, it was super annoying!”
There's an incredulous grunt on the part of the twin girl with the creased brow and gauchely twisted mouth, who's sitting opposite her brother's, as she spits the cigarette smoke out of her nostrils instead of down to her lungs, tapping the ashes into a hard ruby-color metal ashtray placed in the center of the coffee table in front of you, amidst a heap of several empty beer bottles and leftover bread, hamburger and fries, the junk food now all cold and withered.
“Shut up, Pietro!”
Her voice is loud as the shyness that rises red across her pale cheeks, making her look younger and more innocent behind the dark makeup and lank hair. And you, sitting like a physical barrier founded between the pair of siblings, just take a sip of your own cold beer, sinking your body a little deeper into the dark linen sofa that smells like Wanda.
“Come on, Wanda, you’re always nagging that you're gonna die alone or whatever that emo shit you keep saying, so date Y/N instead! She's a great catch!”
“Pietro, I swear to God that I actually will fucking murder you.”
She looks like she's going to explode. It's almost funny in a certain way, but you don't allow yourself to laugh, so you just drink more and more of your beer.
“Y/N,” he moves to you in a drawl and, in a silence that connects your mouth to the mouth of the bottle, your hooded gaze turns to the boy’s piercing blue eyes, “Date Wanda. C’mon, date her! I know your type, I know you have a taste for edgy girls–”
“Seriously, just shut the fuck up!” thunders the younger sister, who is promptly snubbed by the older brother.
“Don't act like it's not true, Wanda! Back home it was always “oh, but Y/N is so pretty”, “Y/N is so cool”, “Y/N's sneakers are stylish”, “Y/N eyes are so–”
But before Pietro can continue in a monologue about his sister and how much she always noticed you, his speech is interrupted by a pillow of reddish fabric that flies close to the tip of your nose only to then crash into his forehead, causing him to spill beer all over his shorts.
But it's a few days later, maybe another weekend or the start of another Monday, that Wanda's wide television, which flashed on her screen an old black-and-white American sitcom that you know is to her taste (who appreciates classic literature and old series, nostalgic for a time when she never lived, something she says came from her mother) is the only thing that clutters the apartment like some source of light or sound, which meet the two of you, both of you snuggled up on her dark beer-stained couch.
You don't have anything to say to each other, but even so, the atmosphere is comfortable and domestic because Wanda, with a sudden abundance of coziness surging into her bubbling core, has her head exhaling the scents of freshly washed hair reclining on your shoulder, your arm in outline of her body pulling her close to your right side, chuckling along with her in innocent humor when some goofy character trips over a piece of furniture or a banana peel.
On the coffee table are a couple of cans of Cherry Coke and an empty red ashtray. You don't know when you two ended up like this, but there's no complaint on your part, and certainly not hers either.
When an alacrity chuckle escapes through the parted crack of her lips, her scalp approaches the underside of your nose and you feel the sweet aroma of strawberry shampoo, which is enveloped in a full-bodied cigarette smell that causes a wave of nostalgic clamor disperses through your bloodstream.
And she knows you like it, because her fingers curl against the hem of the blouse you're wearing on your hunched body on the couch, nails tinted in a sober black nail polish deferring a continuous, circular caress against your lower belly, close to your belly button, dangerously close to the zip of your pants.
“Y/N,” she calls out to you, in a low voice that comes with a background of laughter from an old-time television audience, “Did you really love me back then?”
You look at Wanda, whose head has slipped to fall to your chest, in the warm embrace in which you have captured her. She looks up, now bare of her makeup, in a modest shade of green that shines in the black-and-white lighting that radiates from the television. And in that bonded midair, with the sting of her gaze burning into your irises, you move your chin up and down, never dissolving the bond that you've built.
“Yes,” is a sigh, “Yes, there was a time when… when I loved you. When I really loved you.”
You say, as if you still don't love her. As if you wouldn't be able to break your own bones only to have her there again, lying in the comfort of your arms that salute so much for the outline of the warmth of her body glistening the red color against your bristling chest.
Wanda, for her part, stops with the deferred caress against your lower stomach, shifting her watchful gaze toward the glowing television screen.
“I loved you too, you know,” her body moves closer to yours, “I really loved you back then.”
"Then… why?" your speech can't help but emulate the reactionary question, which comes like thunder, hitting the back of your throat, "If you loved me, then why...?"
Her muscles, even beneath the rock band shirt she wears and the black miniskirt that adorns her hips, strain against you. She knows it's about the prom night, about the abandonment. Your tone isn't furious, but rather, just infested with a genuine curiosity that turns out to have a background in faded hurt.
“Those people,” she mutters between ragged breaths, “The rumors… he would have known. Erik, he… he would have known.”
“We were going to get out of that town, Wanda,” your voice is low against the top of her ear, “I had nothing else to worry about. I didn't care if any of those bastards were going to judge us—”
“It's not about the judgment, Y/N,” she interrupts you, her voice a whisper, after an empty, unfunny chuckle, “Fuck, I couldn't care less if someone was going to judge us. It's not like no one ever judged me for the trouble I got myself into or the shit I did back then, anyways."
And yes, she has a point. If there was anyone at Westview High who would be regarded as the black sheep, a hopeless cause, it would indeed be a young Wanda Maximoff. And then, your frown creases across your forehead. You don't know where she's going with this information that is nothing short of new to you, but you are willing to listen.
“It's just… I told Erik about you. Well, about you and me. On prom day,” your stomach drops as your grip increases the deferred pressure on her left bicep, through the cotton of her shirt, “And then that idiot hit me.”
Her laughter is not matched by yours. A sudden fury that takes over your bones makes you want to punch Erike Lehnsherr in his damn jaw. Wanda has always been the keeper of a sour humor, drinking from sources of cynicism, but this time you weren't able to escort her into a bittersweet joke.
“And I found out that stupid Pietro opened his big mouth and talked about your acceptance letter from NYU,” your gaze falls to the top of her dark-haired head, “And it turns out he had an influential acquaintance inside there. Do you know Professor Charles Xavier?”
“The bald guy who’s always wearing that ugly suit?” you ask, and Wanda nods, between another chuckle. The barely perceptible flicker falling over it indicates an onset of suppressed crying you've seen before.
“Erik, he,” she sniffles, “He said he was going to end your life. And I always knew, I– you wanted so badly to get out of that town, Y/N. You spent that last year studying so hard, you worked so hard for that damn letter… I couldn't let him get away with it, with everything you've worked so hard to achieve. It was your dream, I couldn't, I—”
She gasps against your shirt, in a greedy wave of painful sobs that feel like they want to shatter the bones in her shoulders. And you hold her when she cries, when she breaks down into tears that seem incessant, just like you did before, in your bed at night or in the cold of dawn inside your archaic old car given to you by your father. Even if you also wanted to burst into a painful cry. Even if you want to apologize for all the harm you've caused her in retaliation produced by the bastard who fathered her.
And you see her as you saw her before; just a broken girl in the world, the daughter of someone who didn't deserve to have her in his life.
“I–I just miss my mom so much,” she cries against your chest, sounding so young, so innocent, and so shattered.
You hold her until she sheds all her tears, when the crying subsides, and she begins to wheeze loudly in weary sleep against your chest. It's only then that you allow yourself to cry silently against her hair which, even after so many cigarettes smoked, still manages to smell so good. And you cry for what you did and what you didn't do either.
The bright sun of the pale of the next dawn comes to shine in the middle of the celestial field, somewhat immodic during that particular warm day, in the middle of a sultry and sunny climate.
The wide-open window causes golden slivers of sunlight to warm the top of your cheek, and when your brain finally wakes up, blinking the sleep out of your eyelashes, you feel along with the morning a look burning on your face. And when your eyelids open, it's to reveal Wanda's slightly puffy face in front of you; her eyes half red and puffy from the crying that had put her to sleep, her chin balanced on your chest.
She's lying on top of you, her legs tucked between yours.
“You woke up,” she whispers, like a little child. You smile, still lethargic from the recent sleep in your system.
“I woke up, indeed.”
“Are you okay?” Her tone is curious, full of meaning. A gust of warm air blows between your nostrils, close to her nose that almost touches yours.
"I am. Yes, I am. Are you? What time is it?”
“Early. And yes, I am,” and then, her gaze drops to the line of your lips, “I'm sorry, but I really want to kiss you right now.”
Something burns inside you.
“I really want to kiss you now too, Wanda.”
And then Wanda dives toward you, grabbing the sides of your face between her warm hands. And you then reach forward and take her, pressing the commission of your lips against the contoured sleepy-cherry-flavored mouth that could belong to none other than the girl who always had your heart, who moved her body hers against yours. You just wanted to feel her close, all to yourself, comfortable in your grip.
A slow kiss, half snooty and sloppy, dissolves, but you hold the air inside your lungs and search for more of her, the red inside her mouth, armed with a soft red nostalgic familiarity contouring your bodies through your lips, being eagerly reciprocated by an affectionate Wanda. Your lips were moved carefully, following an invisible line that dictated you not so reckless actions like a rehearsed act.
The fervent kiss becomes a pacified kiss, and the pacified kiss becomes little kisses that soon fade into serene peace. You feel a forehead press against yours.
Soon, a sly pink tongue slips back into your mouth in search of what is hers, expert and needy. And then, a robust and powerful touch, palms wide open and pressed to the curve of your jaw, asks you to open your eyes – and Wanda stands before you like a creature out of a dream, Wanda usurps your senses, Wanda pulses inside your veins and on your tongue.
“You're perfect, Wanda,” you whisper hot against the pulp of her swollen lips, “You're just perfect.”
“I love you,” she says in return, and hot tears again adorn her eyeballs, “I fucking love you, Y/N.”
You want to explode, explode in love. Your forehead presses against hers, and she caresses the cheek of her thumb against the top of her cheekbone.
“I love you too Wanda,” you smile, “I love you too.”
"Oh. You're married?" with Wanda saying it to R. Make it angsty please 😭
gif is not mine
"Oh. You're married?" You look down at your own hand when she asks, the gold hoop shining on your ring finger. The doctors' words about not putting her under stress echo through your mind as you swallow hard all the answers you wanted to give, and you look into her eyes again with a forced smile.
"I am, yeah." You tell with a crying voice, but Wanda fails to notice, too disappointed by the information. "Well, that's nice." She comments, and you have to hold back your giggle at the so-evident lie. "I hope she's good to you."
"Oh, she is." You confirm with tears in your eyes, trying to stop them from falling as you smile. "Would you like to know more about her?" You catch yourself asking before you can contain yourself, and when the redhead nods in confirmation, you sigh. "Well, she's the smartest girl I know. Whenever I have a problem she is the one I turn to and she always knows how to help me. I loved her from the first day I saw her and just when I thought she couldn't make me any happier, she went and gave me my two boys. I'm extremely grateful to her for giving me everything I could have ever wanted."
It's hard to talk about your life together when she doesn't even remember you, but you disguise it as best you can. Hopefully holding on to the possibility that the woman you love so immediately recovers her memory, even though the doctors said that such a possibility is slim.
"I wanna have kids one day." Wanda's voice breaks the silence after a minute or two, and you have a sad smile as you ask her, "You do?"
"Yeah. Two, like you." She confirms with a nod, a mischief smile on her lips as she adds, "And I'll tell you a secret, I always say it doesn't matter what comes, but I really want two boys." The comment makes you genuinely laugh for the first time in so long, a surprised expression on your face.
"Well, now that's something I didn't know." You say with humor in your voice, but the redhead is too busy admiring the sound of your laughter and the features of your face to really take note of what you had said. The next moment, however, her smile turns into a thoughtful frown.
"Why do you keep coming to see me?" The redhead asks with curiosity. But before you can come up with a lie, she makes a dismissive grimace. "Oh, never mind, I just remembered it."
"You did?" You ask hoarsely, in shock, your heart pounding in your ears with hope. "Yeah! You're one of the doctors." With her answer, your hopes go away as quickly as they came, and you force a smile as you nod your head slowly. "Yeah... Yeah, that's right."
"And I'll have you know, you're my favorite doctor." She tells you, leaning in as if telling a secret, and you laugh through your nose, a small smile at the corner of your lips as you try to stay strong for who knows what time that day.
"And you're my favorite patient." You hit back in the same tone, and when she smiles shyly at you, cheeks flushed, you feel your heart break and mend all at once.
"I bet you say that to all of them." She accused with the raise of an eyebrow, and you chuckle, shaking your head as you swear, "I would never." She doesn't seem to believe your words much, however, no matter how true they are. But before the banter can go on, she grimaces in pain, bringing her hand to her temple. "I think I'm gonna take a nap now, my head is hurting again."
"Of course. I'll be here when you wake up." You reassure her, helping her lie back down on the bed with a concerned frown. When her head is comfortably resting on the pillow, Wanda smiles playfully. "Shouldn't you go check out your other patients?"
"My favorite patient." That's the answer you offer her with a slight shrug, smiling when the redhead lets out an amused giggle. "Rest." You instruct as you sit back down in the armchair and, when you're sure that Wanda has fallen asleep, you finally allow yourself to cry.
"Is that so?" You ask with amusement and your girlfriend, who's lying on top of you on the sofa with her head on your chest, hums a confirmation.
"Did you ever have something that was like a life raft?" Wanda asks in a low voice, her fingers playing with the fabric of your T-shirt. "Something that would always make you feel better instantly, would always keep your fears away?"
"Hmm, I don't think so." You answer after a thoughtful moment, your hand gently running through the locks of her hair. "I did." The brunette lets you know. "When I was a kid, I had this otter plush-"
"An otter plush?" You interrupt with a surprised giggle, an amused smile on your lips. "They're so cute!" The witch defends herself naturally, and you smiled a little more at the mental sight of a tiny Wanda hugging a stuffed otter.
"My dad got it for me when I was five." The brunette continues the story with a nostalgic smile that soon turns into a sorrowful frown. "But then, well, the bomb happened and we lost everything. Pietro became my safe place after that. But then Ultron..."
Her voice was brittle as she cut herself off mid-sentence, and you lay a soothing kiss on the top of her head as she swallows the lump in her throat.
"I'm just happy I have a safe place again." Wanda says as she hugs you tighter, and you smile as you reciprocate the embrace. "And I'll always be here for you to hold me when you need to."
"You better be," the brunette replies with a humorous tone that isn't enough to mask her fear when she adds, "because I can't lose you too."
"You won't." You promisse as you kiss her head again, her brown hair preventing you from seeing her sad smile as she hides her face in your shirt a bit further. "You can't promise that."
"Watch me fight the entire universe and the probability laws for you." Your joke makes her giggle, the vibration of the sound against your chest making you smile contently.
"I love you so much." Wanda's voice reaches your ears after a few minutes of silence, and you smile as you reply with ease, "I love you more than anything, my dear... Oh, and before I forget." You announce before lowering your voice as if about to tell a secret. A secret you don't plan to hide from anyone.
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