To Play The Fool Pt 3

to play the fool pt 3

| natasha x fem!reader | request by @strangegardentaco | part one, two

warnings: blood, injury, IDIOTS

a/n: final (?) part! hope you guys enjoy

You collapse through your window, a tangle of legs and arms, and sprawl across the carpet.

The ceiling is murky in the dim afternoon light. You can still smell smoke, woven into the fabric of your suit, the twists of your hair.

You don't know how long the two of you lie there, unmoving. Natasha is a dead weight across your bruised ribs. You can smell something else, too: blood in your nostrils, on your tongue.

The sun must go down at some point: it's as if you blink, and the darkness closes in. It wakes you up. When you can no longer see the outline of the couch in the dark, the tunnel-panic clamps hard down on your heart. You grip Natasha by the shoulders and push her with trembling arms until she rolls onto the carpet beside you, and you shove yourself upright, your breath hot against the inside of your mask. You pull it desperately off, fingers catching in your hair, and discard it. You tug at the laces on your boots by the light from the window, trying to calm your heart, to catch your breath. You can still feel the rock against your palms, the soil sneaking down your shirt.

The boots come off and you get to your feet, stumble your way to the light switch. Your pulse staggers on doggedly, faster than you can count. You flick the switch and the room floods with light. You sink against the off-white wall and press your face to the cool, lumpy paint. You don’t dare close your eyes.

Beyond the couch, Natasha is draped over the floor like a dead thing, red ponytail splayed across your carpet. You stay by the wall, your eyes on her, until your heart has slowed and your chest has loosened and your head is firmly on your shoulders.

You move across the room on shaking legs, using the furniture as crutches, towards her. You roll her onto her back, yank up her sleeve and search for a pulse: your fingers leave smears of dirt and blood across her pale wrist. You feel the beat, shallow and weak under your thumb. Good. Good.

Your brain won’t work, neurons firing sluggishly. You have to wake up. You have to assess the situation.

All you really want to do is collapse on the floor next to Natasha and sleep.

But you won’t. You tug your gloves off, wincing as they peel away from your ruined fingernails, and check Natasha’s airway. She’s breathing. You try to think.

You’ve done this before, a hundred times. You’ve stitched yourself up. You’ve dug bullets from skin, you’ve cleared grit from wounds, you’ve done CPR and cracked ice packs and set bones. You can do it.

You hesitate only once more, when your hands move to unzip Natasha’s suit. God, if she ever wakes up, she’s going to be so mad at you. But you take a look at her grey, peaceful face, and worry overtakes embarrassment. You pull the zip down: beneath, her undershirt is ripped and bloodied and dirty with sweat and soil. You peel the suit off her shoulders and down, scanning for wounds - a slice down her upper arm, a huge splay of bruises over her stomach, grazes on her elbows and knees and hips. Little nicks on her legs, seeping blood. Another larger knife wound stretches over her ribs when you roll her onto her side.

And that leg, the one that had been trapped under a rock when you’d first found her: it’s bruised and the knee is bent at an odd angle. Dislocated, perhaps.

She’s battered. You hate it, a deep well of anger that rises like a bucket drawing water the more you uncover. You hate that too, that you care so damn much. She doesn’t care about you. She barely tolerates you - she only ever talked to you to keep you out of trouble. What right do you have to care?

You eventually decide to move Natasha to the bathroom: that’s where your first aid kit is, and the light is bright in there and you have a multitude of fluffy bathmats that you can use to carpet the floor. You hook your hands under Natasha’s arms, brace your legs and pull. You drag her across the carpet, through the kitchen and into the bathroom. You lay her down halfway through the door, and drag the first aid kit and a few bathmats out of the cupboard, laying them haphazardly across the floor. Then you grab Natasha again and haul her in the rest of the way.

You collapse down beside her, your spine to the cold bathtub, knees up, and rest your head on the lip of the bath. You catch your breath. Natasha’s blood seeps into one of your bathmats and you groan, but make no move to shift her. Your energy is spent.

With tired fingers, you tug the first aid kit towards your feet. You unzip it, flip it open. Suture packs and bandages and single-use ice packs stare back at you. This is useless. You can barely lift your head.

But you manage it. It takes you hours. You clean Natasha’s wounds, slather her bruises in arnica, stitch her up, all the while keeping an eye on her sleeping face. She doesn’t so much as twitch, not even when your hand cramps in the middle of a loop through the knife wound on her ribs. Deep sleeper, you think, and you want to slap yourself for noticing anything about her. She’s not your friend.

So why is she unconscious on your bathroom floor? Why did you crawl through a hundred metres of rock to rescue her?

“Fuck you,” you say. Her body doesn’t reply. You don’t want to feel like this, panic sitting perpetually in your throat like a stone lodged there. You shouldn’t have gone. You should have let the Avengers fend for their damn selves, like Natasha was so adamant that they would. You rest your head against the lip of the bath again, and your eyes glaze over. You mustn’t sleep, though: sleep means dark.

The pain reaches you late. Something aside from the grazes and bruises and blood still sitting heavy in your nose. At first you think it’s a remnant of the knot in your throat, of the tide of adrenaline receding slowly and sadly and leaving you on the brink of useless, useless tears as you stare at Natasha’s stone-still face. But it’s not.

It becomes a burn, a sting in your side first, then a flare that becomes impossible to ignore. You unzip your jacket, letting gravity pull your heavy hand downwards.

You’re bleeding. You register this slowly, the soaked and half-dry patch of your dark top, the wetness uncomfortable on your hip. “Ow,” you say, to the empty room. You poke, and the pain intensifies, fades back to ground state. You hiss in through your teeth as you roll your shirt slowly up.

It’s a long gash down your side, the edges of the wound pink and raw like a burn, steadily seeping blood. The gun. The shot. The burst of energy from your eyes. The bullet must have grazed your side, deep. “Ow,” you say, and it drops from your lip as a whimper. With fresh blood on your fingers, you fumble for the first aid kit and drag it towards you, searching one-handed for gauze to soak up the blood. Your shirt keeps slipping down. Frustrated, you pull the shirt up and grab it with your teeth, then press the gauze hard to your side. It hurts, burns, and you grunt through your teeth, tongue against the roof of your mouth. Your eyes flicker sideways to check that Natasha is still sleeping.

The stitches are torturous, dipping in through your ragged skin and drawing the sides of the wound together as you pinch with one hand, your eyes watering and tears spilling onto your cheeks. Your stomach is a mess of blood and water that you’ve splashed on to clean yourself, your pants soaked with it. You swear into your top, damp with saliva. You feel filthy, your nails black with dirt, snot and blood welling in your nostrils. You finish the last knot and think desperately of a shower.

But you should wake Natasha, before she chokes on her own vomit in her sleep or something. You can’t leave her unconscious on your bathroom floor.

You strip your ruined shirt off and tie it around your face, trying to ignore the stink of blood in your nose. You don’t know why you bother to hide at this point, but something about the covering makes you feel safer, surer of yourself. You don’t bother with your hair.

You take Natasha by the shoulders and shake her, once, twice.

“Natasha,” you say, your voice slightly muffled by the shirt. “Natasha!” Louder. Nothing. You grab your phone from where you’ve discarded it on the edge of your bloodied sink and search for an alarm sound: the most annoying, repetitive ring on there. You press play. It rings. And rings.

Natasha’s eyebrows move, shift into a frown. Her eyes open into slits. You don’t turn the alarm off, not yet. The ringing becomes louder, more insistent, and she blinks twice, lips parting, tongue passing over them. Her eyes slide to you, a little unfocused.

“Asshole,” she says, her mouth barely moving.

“Huh?” you say, playing it up.

“Turn that the fuck off.”

“You’re welcome,” you reply sharply, and you cut the alarm off. Natasha says nothing for a few seconds. She licks her lips again, stares glassily up at the ceiling. You wait, ignoring your pounding, anxious, traitor heart.

“It’s bright,” she observes.

“Your knee is dislocated,” you say. “I would’ve put it back, but I didn’t think that would be a pleasant wake-up.” Her eyes shift back to you. You try to ignore them, how brilliantly green they are, how keen and observant even in their half-focused state. Impossible.

“Why are you still wearing that?” she asks. Her voice is rough. Your fingers touch the shirt over your face.

“Who was the kid?” you counter. Natasha sighs. She digs her elbows into the floor and shoves herself up into what looks like a painful sitting position. She notices the blood and water and stitches and bruises and perhaps the fact that she’s in her underwear.

“Oh,” she says. Her fingers drift across the line of stitches over her ribs. You might be imagining it, but you think you see her shudder.

“I have a paramedic certificate,” you say. “And like - a shit ton of experience. I go to a lot of protests as a medic.”

“You shouldn’t have done that while I was asleep,” she says.

“I don’t have any anaesthesia,” you reply, slightly irritated. A thank you would be nice. But Natasha doesn’t thank you. She rises fast, face clenched in pain, flips up your toilet lid and retches into it. Her spine curves, the vertebrae showing starkly under her pale skin. Muscles roll as she convulses again, but you don’t hear the splatter of vomit. She must be dry-heaving - by the look of the bruises on her stomach, that will hurt.

She stills eventually, panting into your toilet bowl. Her hair snakes down her back, the nape of her neck damp with sweat.

“Do you want some water?” you ask.

“No.”

“Okay.” You wipe your hands on your ruined bathmats. “Do you want a shower?”

“Leave me alone,” Natasha says. Her voice echoes in the toilet, but is somehow still incredibly small. You frown at her curved back, heat rushing to your face. How can she make you feel this stupid in your own home?

“Fine,” you say. The bathroom is far too small for two people. Too cramped, too bright, too hot. You get unsteadily to your feet and leave, shutting the door hard behind you. She slumps to the floor with a rustle, and you walk away before you can hear anymore.

You wash off in the sink, your ruined shirt discarded in the kitchen bin. The water lands cold on your feet and you don’t care, can’t bring yourself to care. The world is bright beyond your window, even this late at night, the glitter of street lamps and windows and billboards. Maybe even the orange glow of fire. This is where your effort to become a meaningful part of that world has landed you. Splashing yourself with cold water in the kitchen sink, banished from your own bathroom and bleeding like an idiot.

You turn the tap off and pat yourself dry with a tea towel that ends up in the bin as well, smeared with blood. You fetch a towel from your room, lay it over the couch and lower yourself gingerly onto it, rest your head back. The room is well lit, warm now. You won’t sleep. You want to, but you know it won’t come. You probably won’t sleep easy for the next week.

Inevitably, as you gaze out of the window from your seat, your thoughts return to the idiot woman hacking up blood and nothing in your bathroom. You can’t hear her, so she’s not showering, not throwing up. You have a sudden awful vision of her lying passed out on the blood-soaked bathmats, frothing red at the mouth, and you have to stop yourself from getting up to check on her.

You sit there as the sun comes up. Natasha doesn’t come out, even as the hours drip past, and eventually you make up your mind to talk to her. You pull your mask back on, grimacing at the dried blood and smell of sweat in it, and you walk to the bathroom door on unsteady legs.

“Natasha?” you say, tentatively. No answer.

Then, just as you’re about to call again; “Yeah,” she says, from within the bathroom. You hesitate, trawling for what to say next.

“You can have a shower if you want.”

“You can come in if you want,” she replies dryly. You take that as an invitation and open the door to find her sitting with her back to the wall, head tipped back. Her face is still ashen. You expect her to say something, an apology maybe, but instead she sits there with her damn wounded pride and stares you down.

“Nice mask,” she says. You seriously consider kicking her out at that moment, but the feeling fades just as quickly as it comes on. Because her eyes drop almost shamefully and her fists curl in her lap. It’s not an apology, not a thank you, nowhere near to anything you’d accept for either of those things, but for some fucking reason you can read those movements like words on a page and it softens your resolve to be harsh with her.

“Shower,” you say shortly. “You stink.”

“You stink,” she fires back at you. You turn and leave again before you can snap at her.

You hear the shower switch on as you’re eating an apple and glaring aimlessly through the kitchen window. Natasha doesn’t shower for very long. You’re only halfway through your apple when you hear the water shut off again. You stay where you are, hear her climb out of the bathtub, feet squeaking on the ceramic.

She calls your name. You take a large bite of the apple and toss it into the trash can. You take your time walking to the bathroom, and when you open the door she’s wrapped herself in the shower curtain and is scowling up at you from her seat on the edge of the bathtub.

“What?” you say, your voice faltering from the anger you’d meant to inject. Her eyes are large and her lashes are wet and her bare, pale shoulders are scattered with freckles and small wounds and you rip your eyes away from her.

“I didn’t want to use your towel,” she says. She shifts, and the curtain rustles around her.

You roll your eyes and turn to leave. You pull a towel from the hall cupboard and throw it through the door at her: she catches it before it hits her face, with a wince.

She clutches it to her chest and you raise your eyebrows at her.

“Anything else, your majesty?”

“Why are you so angry with me?” Natasha asks, and that heat, that hatred with yourself that you’ve lain your thoughts out before her, rises again from your stomach.

“You-” you say, but your throat is thick with emotion now and you know you can’t explain it.

Natasha tilts her head at you. “I didn’t ask you to do any of this,” she says.

“What?” you exclaim. “Are you serious?!”

“I told you to leave,” she fires back. “It’s not my fault you’ve got a hero complex like all the rest of them-”

“Hero complex?” you spit. “You’re the one who ran alone into an explosion to save a baby! Let me have this, you said that! Hero complex my fucking ass.” Natasha opens her mouth again and you step back and slam the door on her, your heart trembling in your chest with rage.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

She doesn’t emerge from the bathroom after that until you swallow as much of your pride as you can and hand her sweats and a t-shirt without looking her in the eye. You feel like she’s trying to catch you off guard, constantly now, and you half expect her to drop her towel or something just to shock you, make fun of you. But she doesn’t. She takes the clothes and waits until you’ve left, and then she wanders out of the bathroom in her borrowed clothes, limping on her bad knee. You look over at her from the couch, where you’re spooning cereal into your mouth under your mask.

You frown. “Your knee,” you say before you can stop yourself. She looks surprised like she expects you to snap at her again.

“I put it back,” she replies, with a shrug. Like it’s nothing. You gape at her for a second, then pull yourself together when you realise she can’t see your expression.

Shower. Dress. You’re still practically half-naked and you’re cold now, and you suddenly don’t want to be the only one undressed. You set your cereal down and move past her to the bathroom.

“Ice in the freezer,” you say, and you shut the door behind you. You pull the mask off and wipe with relief at the condensation on your face.

The shower is glorious, warm, and the pressure harsh on your shoulders. It’s freezing at first, which makes you jump and curse - Natasha must have taken her shower cold. You spend as long as you dare under the spray, ever conscious of running up your water bill for no real reason. When you step out, you see that Natasha has left her towel folded on the window sill. Her ruined suit is nowhere to be seen until you pedal open the bin and you see the suit, the ruined bathmats and a length of bloodied bandage.

“Huh,” you say to yourself, quietly, without meaning to. You pull on a jumper that won’t rub your stitches and loose shorts, and you step out of the bathroom. The steam follows you out like a cloud. Natasha is slumped in your armchair with your frozen bag of peas on her knee, the early morning sunlight glowing across her face. Her eyes are closed.

You pull open your fridge and reach for a beer.

“I feel like it’s a bad idea to drink right now,” she says.

You look over. She still hasn’t opened her eyes. “Shut up,” you say. You flick the cap off on your counter and drink deeply.

Natasha shifts in her seat, to face you. That’s when you realise you forgot to put your mask back on. You freeze. Your stomach lurches.

Natasha stares at you for a second too long, her mouth moving like she’d been about to say something. Then her eyes flick away, almost guiltily. In the silence that follows, you both try hard not to acknowledge it. But your face feels cold and bare, under the stare that lingers even as Natasha sets her eyes firmly on the arm of the couch.

Your heart thunders like a drum.

“Thank you,” Natasha says, almost too quiet to hear.

“What?” you say, shock reflexes taking over even as the words register. Natasha looks at you again, eyes narrowed, like she thinks you’re messing with her. And sure. It would be easier to mess with her, draw it out of her again and again and revel in your victory but-

-you don’t want to. You don’t even know what she’s thanking you for: some idiot, pretentious part of you could imagine she’s thanking you for the honour of seeing your face - as if she ever would. Maybe the stitches, the clothes, the shower, maybe she’s thanking you for dragging her out of that hot, damp hell-hole on trembling legs.

“You’re welcome,” you say, and you take a long sip so you don’t have to see her face change.

More silence, thick as a wall between the two of you. You don’t want to think of her shaking and trembling against you, how determined you’d felt right then in the dark, but the images come anyway.

“What happened to you?” she asks, and she nods at your side, where the deep graze and the stitches are. You look down. You remember all the questions you have for her, that’s she’s so adamant not to answer.

“Bullet,” you say. “Grazed me. Some idiot in a hood.”

“You don’t know who it was?”

“I was a little too preoccupied to ID them,” you reply, a bite in your voice. You’re not angry. You’re just thinking real hard about how heavy Natasha had felt against you. Like a corpse. You tilt your head at her. “They wanted to know where that baby was. You feel like filling me in?”

Her face closes off. “No,” she says.

“Right. So I got shot for nothing.”

“Did you blast them?” Natasha asks, ignoring your comment.

“They’re dead,” you reply, dully. You look at the floor. She’s fallen silent. “I didn’t mean to, I just-”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

You can’t look at her. “Hawkeye will have found them by now.” She rustles the bag of peas, rearranges them. “What did they want with the kid, Natasha?” Now that she can hear you, is awake and looking you right in the eye, or attempting to, her name feels naked coming from your mouth. Raw and too personal.

“Doesn’t concern you,” she says.

“It does,” you say. You wait for anger, but your body’s too tired for it. “Please just tell me what’s going on.”

She shifts again, and pain materialises on her face with the movement, for just a second. You rest a hand on the countertop and wait it out.

“Fine,” she says eventually. “Sit down. You’re dead on your feet.” That irks you, for a reason you can’t decode.

“I’m fine.”

“Sit down.”

“Jesus Christ.” You move to the couch and throw yourself down, glaring at her. “Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” she says dryly. She molds the bag of peas to her knee and begins to explain.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

She falls asleep on the armchair to let you digest what the hell you’ve just heard, and the sun comes up through the window like a torchbeam. You call into work at eight, holding your nose closed, and tell your manager you have a shitty cold. He answers with a grunt and hangs up. Easy enough. You toss the phone onto the cushions beside you.

The silence coating your apartment seems to buffer the noise of the outside world, of car horns and voices. Natasha sleeps fitfully, half-woken every few minutes by the sunlight on her face, but you’re too exhausted to get up and close the curtains. You finish your bottle and set it down on the coffee table, where it sweats condensation.

You don’t know when you fall asleep, but you wake with your heart in your mouth and your hands fisted in the couch cushions. You suck in breaths through trembling jaws. Visions of tight tunnels and blood under your nails and Natasha’s ashen face fade as you blink them away.

The armchair is empty when you come to your senses. Something overcomes you: a wave of disappointment maybe, or regret - and then you hear the toilet flush and you feel monumentally stupid. You’d missed her for a second there. What right did you have to miss her? Why should she make you feel that way?

Natasha emerges from the bathroom, drying her hands. “It’s midday,” she tells you, and your heart lurches in shock. “You don’t sleep very well.” She leans a hip on the kitchen counter and pushes a hand through her hair, observing you through quarter-closed eyes.

“Neither do you,” you say. Her eyes narrow. “Can you get me a drink?”

She turns away, turns on the sink faucet and fills a glass with water. She rounds the edge of the counter and hands it to you.

“You know what I meant,” you say, but you take it anyway.

“You’ll get a beer belly,” she says, her voice flat. She must be tired if she’s too exhausted to tease you properly. You pull your sweatshirt up and poke at the muscle on your stomach.

“I think I’m okay,” you say. You raise your head to take a sip of water and Natasha’s eyes move from your stomach to your face. She looks awkward standing there: and that’s not a word you’d ever think to use to describe Black Widow. But she doesn’t look like Black Widow right now - she looks like a woman barely scraping five foot six in a t-shirt way too big for her, and the sun is turning her hair copper-gold through the window. She looks normal.

“Stop staring at me,” she says.

“You first.”

She breaks the eye contact.

“What are-” you don’t know what you intended to ask. You stare down at your water and collect your thoughts. “Do they know where you are?” you say eventually.

She raises one eyebrow at you. Your heart does awful, traitorous things in your chest and you hold her gaze for as long as you can. “You mean the Avengers? I don’t let them track me.”

“Okay,” you say. “You know, you can sit down if you want.” Your stomach growls. The corner of her mouth twitches up. “I’m hungry,” you say. “Sue me.”

“So eat.”

“Too tired.”

“God, you are pathetic.”

That should piss you off. It doesn’t. You give her a lazy grin and secretly wonder to yourself how the hell all this happened to you.

Natasha smooths down a loose thread on the seam of her (your) sweatpants. They’re rolled up twice at the waist. “Thank you,” she says. “For coming back for me.”

“Choose a better way to die next time,” you say, instead of something nice or gracious or meaningful.

Natasha sighs. “I don’t know why I bother with you,” she says, sinking onto the arm of the couch, above you.

“I’m irresistible.”

“You’re an idiot.”

You think about calling for pizza, a half-smile on your face. You wipe it off quickly, but not before she sees.

“I wouldn’t have left you there,” you say. Her eyes drift away. Makes you think about who else left her behind before. You don’t think promises mean much to her: they’re only words. Like threats. Blackmail. You don’t think words get under her skin as much as they do yours. “Swear.”

“I know.” She looks down at her hands. “I tried to stay awake. I thought you weren’t coming, in the end.”

You have this stupid, terrible urge to reach out and take her by the hand and tell her - what? What would you tell her that would mean anything?

It doesn’t subside. The moment passes. You slump into the couch.

“You know, you didn’t have to hide your face,” Natasha says. “When we got back.” She’s stumbling over words.

“Yeah, you already knew what I looked like,” you reply. You shrug. “It just felt better, having it on.”

“I didn’t know what you looked like. You know, you’re not too bad at the whole secret identity thing.”

You frown. “Then how did you find me the first time?”

“I followed you,” Natasha says casually. “You were bleeding everywhere. You weren’t moving very fast. I guessed which apartment was yours.”

“You guessed?” you echo. You imagine Natasha turning up in Nadia Henstridge’s apartment next door: the woman is verging on ninety - seeing Natasha in her boots and leather jacket sitting in the dark would probably send her headfirst into a heart attack.

Natasha grins. “I’m a very good guesser.”

“Sure,” you say. More silence: you hate the silence. You don’t want to hear your own heartbeat, or Natasha’s breathing. “The mask made me feel safer,” you say. I didn’t want you to be disappointed, you don’t say.

Natasha looks down at you. She reaches out and touches your cheek, softly with the pads of her fingers. You stare at her, your heart in your ears, drowning out everything. “You look better without it,” she says.

You want to kiss her. You realise that, what that stupid, burning heat in your chest is. Once you’ve found that urge, you can’t stop thinking about it, even as she withdraws her hand and looks away.

Do something, you scream at yourself. All this inward thinking is driving you insane. Say something.

You reach for her hand, and you intend to tug her round to look at you, but you pull too hard and she overbalances, sliding off the arm of the couch and onto the seat beside you with a surprised yelp.

“What the hell?” Natasha exclaims. Her bright green eyes are narrowed, cheeks flushed - God, she looks incredible.

“Um,” you say. You can’t do it. You can’t do it.

“Um,” Natasha says, mocking you, and she slides a hand into your hair and pulls you in to kiss her.

It’s easier than you’d thought it would be. Her face fits right to yours. Her lips are warm. You can feel where it’s split, taste the blood. You kiss her back, one hand wrapped around hers, one settled on her knee. Your chest tightens, loosens, excitement firing like sparks in your brain.

She pulls away from you. You take a second to open your eyes.

“Idiot,” she says. You frown at her. “I’m gonna kiss you again,” she says. You make an agreeable noise and she pulls you in, hand on the back of your neck. She steals your breath. She kisses your bottom lip, the corner of your mouth, and your fist curls in the fabric of your sweatpants.

The two of you surface, still centimetres apart, and you suck in a breath. “Thank you for coming back for me,” she says, against your mouth. Her hand loosens in yours.

“Always,” you say.

“You have really nice abs.”

You laugh, a crazed little giggle. She grins at you. You kiss her again, mouths half-open, smiles half-formed.

The next time you pull apart, she runs her thumb down the column of your throat.

“I’m still hungry,” you say, to distract yourself from the feel of her skin on yours.

“I’ll buy you pizza,” Natasha says.

“To thank me for saving your life.”

“No, this is to thank you for saving my life.” She tilts her head sideways and kisses your neck, and a gasp of surprise falls from your open mouth. She laughs, sending vibrations through your skin, into your bones.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

She orders pepperoni. You accuse her of playing it safe and she swats you with a pillow, and the two of you eat out on the fire escape and watch the day roll past. You rest your head on her shoulder.

“This is fucking good,” Natasha mumbles around a mouthful. She wipes her fingers on the pizza box and reaches for another slice. She crams half of it into her mouth at once.

“You eat a lot for such a small person,” you observe. Natasha throws you a playful look of disgust.

“You’re like, an inch taller than me.”

“An inch can make all the difference,” you joke. She slaps your shoulder halfheartedly. A truck horn goes off in the distance. There are three wisps of cloud in the sky, and the metal of the fire escape is warm beneath you. Natasha’s clean hand winds its way into yours.

“I like you a lot,” she admits, quiet. Your heart swells instantly.

“I like you too,” you say. You squeeze her hand. Silence, once again. You know what you’re both thinking. Natasha words it first.

“They’ll be looking for me,” she says.

“I know. You should go.”

She sighs, and her breath ruffles your hair. “I will. I don’t want them coming after you.”

“I thought you said you don’t let them track you,” you say. A little, helpless worm of fear squirms into your words. You try to squash it.

“Hawkeye can find me,” Natasha says. “If he tries really hard.” She snorts to herself.

“Where will you go?” you ask. “I’ll give you some shoes.”

“Manhattan,” Natasha says, almost dismally. “I’ll come back, though.” She looks at you. She presses her face to your hair. “Promise.” You smile at the sun, eyes half-shut. You hope she catches it.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

You lend her sneakers and help her into a coat and you swallow jealousy when you open the door for her. They have her all the time, see her smile and hear her talk: why don’t you get a little more time?

You kiss her hard, so she’ll remember, so she will come back, even though you know she will. Her hands curl into your shirt, and she grins against your mouth. When you separate, she licks her lips.

“I wanted a good one,” you say. She tugs on a lock of your hair.

“I’ll come back for you,” she says, in earnest.

“I believe you.”

And you watch her walk away, until she’s all the way out of sight down the corridor.

requests | masterlist

taglist: @when-wolves-howl @fayhar @maggieromanov @transbi-spidey @romanoffscottage @blackxwidowsxwife @lizli @screechcat @maddess @mellxa @haeva @diaryoflife @natashasilverfox @vicmc624 @strangegardentaco @phantomvael @lorsstar1st @rysnwilder @ima-gi--na-tion @paryl @picnicmic @smallestavenger @lainjupi @d1s0nym @simpforflorencepugh1 @the-v01d @kqmui @s1ut4nat @btay3115 @emril-osvigne

notes: PLEASE REBLOG IM REALLY PROUD OF THIS ONE. pt 4? idk what I would write though

Tags

natasha romanoff x reader mcu natasha romanoff black widow black widow x reader natasha romanov x reader

Partners in Crime

Summary - Natasha is forced to confront her past after a certain witch decides to play mind games with the Avengers; that includes remembering the one person she regrets failing the most.

Pairing - Natasha Romanoff x KGB!reader

Warning(s) - The Red Room being shitty, canon typical violence, angst

Word Count - 4.2k

a/n - This could be read as a one-shot or I could extend it into a series, that I have definitely not started to plan out. I’ll leave it up to you guys. ;)

- Also, the vibe of their relationship was inspired by the song of the same title as the fic by FINNEAS. It’s nice and heartbreaking, but also one of my favorite songs so give it a listen.

- Last thing, this won’t impact the fic a ton, but I’m making Natasha’s past more comic aligned, meaning her date of birth is around the 1930s, not the 80s like in the MCU; so just keep that in mind.

If you would have told younger Natasha Romanoff that she would one day be fighting an evil sentient robot with the help of a god, a science experiment, a world class narcissist, and a SHIELD agent, she would have laughed in your face and then probably killed you.

But here she was, on a dark, humid cargo ship in the middle of Africa engaged in a three way shootout between the Avengers, Ultron, and some weapons dealers.

As soon as the shooting had started, she formed a list of the threats present in order of priority.

First, Tony’s murder bot and his, its? minions. She supposes a robot couldn’t possess a gender, but something about it was distinctly male. Probably the giant ego and the inability to listen to anyone except himself. Ultron wouldn’t bother her, he would most likely be engaged with Tony for a bit before making his escape. Nothing she and her twin glocks could do to stop that.

Next, his smaller robot clones. Those he would most definitely leave on the boat to add to the chaos and provide a distraction for his escape. They would be shooting at her, but more importantly, she could help take them out in return.

Finally, whatever mercenaries were left on the boat from the deal they had with Ultron. She almost didn’t consider them at all. Sure, they’d be running around shooting at everything, but they were like flies to her: low threat, annoying, loud.

With the mental list successfully mapped out in her mind, she chances a peak around the corner she was using for cover, immediately putting two bullets in a merc across the walkway.

She turns to intercept one of the bots making its way over to Clint when a loud crash sounds from the deck below her. A blue blur lands roughly into a pile of crates and that’s when she remembers the twins.

She chastises herself for leaving them out of her mental game plan.

The Maximoffs are unknowns, and that fact alone is enough to put them on the top of the threat list.

Natasha lets her body go on autopilot, relying back on her life of training to shoot at the remaining men and androids alike, while her mind is occupied with assembling a file on the enhanced.

The boy would be annoying, but she doubts that he would try and seriously harm any of them. The most she’d have to deal with is getting the wind knocked out of her after getting pushed down by him.

The girl however, was truly something that could provide a real threat towards the team. Natasha thought back to when they first encountered her at the HYDRA base, how Tony went radio silent before returning with the scepter, and how he didn’t seem entirely present on the flight back to the tower.

Thor’s voice interrupted her assessment as he announced that the witch had tried to warp his mind, but that his mightiness was sufficient to thwart her attack.

“Steve, you hear that?” The assassin checked on her comms, only to be met with a silence that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

“Thor, Steve, are you receiving me?” She tries again, adjusting her earpiece for good measure.

The ship was eerily quiet, as if all the sound around her was sucked out, as if she were the only remaining entity on the battlefield; and only now did she process how hot it was and how the dim lighting added to her unease.

She decided that checking on the boys had just shot to the top of her priority list and moved to descend the stairs when a presence moved out of the shadows next to her.

The next thing she knew she was no longer—

How

How did she end up back at the one place she had actively avoided going back to for the past few decades.

She looked around, now wondering why, why she would be thrust into this living nightmare where the walls felt like they were closing in on her and she couldn’t help but shake the feeling of being watched.

That notion of prying eyes didn’t go away, even as she swung her head around, sweeping the location for unwanted persons just as she had been taught here all those years ago. She turned around, poised for an attack, expecting to find Petrovitch or Madame B or something there besides the emptiness. Only to be met with the pristine ceramic floors and the old wooden walls.

Has this place always been this unnerving? She supposes so and chalks up her unease to the time and distance spent away and in the safe arms of SHIELD. She had gone soft. Or maybe it was the fact that she hadn’t always been lucid during her time here.

That didn’t matter though. All that mattered was the fact that she was here.

Alone.

Or so she thought before she finally noticed a figure pass through the hall in front of her, wrapping around the corner before she could start to analyze them.

Almost as if she didn’t have a choice, her legs started to move after the person, an invisible force tying her to them; who was it?

The path was one that led her down many cold, dark halls that felt foreign at first, until the familiarity of the place crept up from the recesses of her unwilling mind. Her entire childhood that she had worked so hard to shut out was being thrown right back into her face as she was forced to relive it.

She spotted them again right before they ducked into a room, shutting the door behind them.

She knew it wasn’t locked though, their doors never had that capability. Personal privacy was not a luxury they were afforded here.

She paused as her hand brushed the door handle; did she really want to face this, to face you?

She didn’t have a choice though, and it was silly to entertain the idea of one at all.

So she went in.

You were leaning up against the wall, your arms crossed over your chest and your head down in waiting.

You look up though when she walks through the door, a smile on your face as you push off the wall and close the distance between the two of you, gently closing the door behind your Natalia.

There’s almost no distance in between you two and her breath hitches as she looks into your eyes.

Those eyes that once were the center of her whole world, the ones that stubbornly held so much light and love despite all of the things they had seen. The ones that she had fallen in love with and found shelter in throughout the darkest part of her life.

Too bad she never had the chance to tell you any of those things.

Too bad you weren’t actually here.

But you were, right?

She cups her hand around your cheek, fingers brushing lightly against your jawline. It felt so real, you were warm, and you were standing right in front of her; so close that she could feel your breath on her skin.

“I miss you.” Was all that she could manage to get out, her voice so quiet she thought that maybe it would go undetected.

It worries her when a few seconds go by without a response, but that dissipates when she hears your voice.

“Oh Natalia.” You say, equally as quiet as a sad smile graces your face.

She can’t take it anymore.

The way you’re looking at her with those disappointed puppy dog eyes, the knowledge of chances not taken haunting her, her want need to be even closer to you.

So she closes her eyes and kisses you.

It surprises her when you kiss her back with equal fervor. It shouldn’t when she knows what she meant to you. You hadn’t been scared to let her know you loved her. She just regrets that she never told you her own feelings.

But you are here now and she is kissing you so she tries to pour all of her love into this one moment.

You stay locked in that embrace for as long as you can before you pull away, out of breath.

She looks at you and notices your face is wet with tears before feeling her own tears streaming down her cheeks.

Apparently that had been something you both desperately needed.

You step back, creating distance between the two of you and allowing the cold to wrap itself around her now that your presence is gone.

The silence was deafening as she waited for you to say something, her cheeks still flushed from the heat of the kiss.

This was how it was supposed to be: you two against the world, finding solace in the love you shared, and using it to shield yourselves from the horrors that were thrown at you.

She let that thought envelop her for a moment before once again being distracted by the silence and your movement along with it.

You had your back turned to her now, the sole dim lightbulb warping your frame and turning your naturally soft aura into the sinister one they had beaten into you from before you could speak.

“Why did you let them take me?” You voice the question that she had been tormenting herself with ever since she last saw you.

You round on her now, your voice taking on an edge that made her want to bolt. The accusing glint in your eyes causing her to break eye contact with you; something she hadn’t done since entering the room.

“You’re a coward, Natalia.”

Gone was the soul she had fallen in love with, the one she had shared an intimate moment with just seconds before. It had been wiped, replaced with one bent on destruction and making her crumble.

The dormitory that had once been a sanctuary for her, a place to shut herself in with no one else but you, suddenly seemed too dark, too cold, too hostile. You had provided the light that she needed to keep going, but now you had turned on her, effectively plunging her into darkness.

“Umph.” Her back hit the door roughly as you had rushed her, pinning her there with your hand around her neck.

“Please,” she started, but you cut her off by slapping her harshly across the face.

“No. I’m dead, and it’s all your fault.”

You release the death grip you had on her and stalk out of the room, disappearing into the darkness of the hallway outside.

The redhead bent over to refill her lungs before whirling around to sprint after you.

But you were gone.

Slipped from her grasp into the night air.

And just like before, there was nothing she could do to stop it.

She lowered herself onto the ground, a choked sob escaping her lips as she closed her eyes and hugged her knees close to her chest.

She didn’t know what to do so she just sat there, squeezing her eyes as tight as she could and hoping that you would come back.

Then she heard a voice calling her name, one that brought her comfort and safety.

“Natasha. Natasha, come on!”

It wasn’t you though as she had hoped for, it was the wrong voice and the wrong name.

The voice was pleading though, and she didn’t like how sad it sounded so she forced herself to open her eyes and look at the man kneeling in front of her.

It was Clint; his eyes full with worry. Oh how she was glad to see him. Her best friend, her partner in crime, her brother. She quickly gauged her surroundings and noticed that somehow she had been moved to the Quinjet and that it had landed on a familiar farm.

How long was she out for?

As if reading her mind, Clint spoke up, “the Maximoff girl hit us hard, everyone except me and Tony. We needed a safe place to regroup, so I thought it was time to introduce the rest of the team to the Barton clan.

Oh, oh that’s right. Ultron, the twins, HYDRA, it was all coming back to her now. She nodded numbly towards the archer and moved to stand up, the man quickly supporting her and walking her inside the farmhouse.

She couldn’t be bothered to tune into any of the conversations going on around her, too preoccupied with the fact that she had seen you for the first time in half a century; even if it was just in her magic fueled imagination.

None of the Avengers, even Clint, had ever seen her so unnerved, and it worried them greatly, but all of them were more or less emotionally stunted, so they just made sure to give her space as they stood gathered in the living room.

What finally snapped her out of her stupor was two children barreling into the room, one little girl in particular asking to see her Auntie Nat. She smiles and is proud to say it’s only half fake as she picks up the eight year old.

She also manages to tease Laura about her pregnancy before escaping up to her usual room, letting out a sigh as she shuts the door.

Shower. She needs a shower. That will help her clear the nightmare from her mind.

To clear you from her mind.

She steps into the bathroom and sets the handle to the max temperature, using the scalding water to ground herself.

After she’s done she allows herself to sit on the bed and take a moment to process the whole thing. From the shock of seeing you again, to kissing you, to the seething rage radiating off of you as you blamed her for your fate.

She needed to remember what was real. The true events that led to you being taken from her, not the reality from the fake you that had somehow felt so real, that was what she needed to find and let play in her mind.

There wasn’t a lot to choose from, even with the time and the help from SHIELD the ever-present gaps in her memory, courtesy of the Red Room’s “conditioning”, made it hard to pin down a certain, complete moment with you.

But, after an indeterminable amount of time staring at the wall and raking through her memories, she picks one out, one that had been strong enough to stick around in her head, even after all this time.

Circa 1955

She was on a mission in Paris. Her being as efficient and ruthless as her title implied, she had completed her mission almost 24 hours prior to when she was originally due to report back.

Deciding that a small break would be in everyone’s best interest, but mostly hers, she chose to not contact her handlers about the early mission accomplished and instead took time to explore the City of Light.

A small part of her wondered if they would know, if she should just call them and head back to base like they would want her to, but a larger part of her was disgusted at the mere thought of going back, so she broke protocol after making absolutely certain that there was no way they could find out.

After a day of playing a ditzy American tourist and checking out the city she found herself back at her hotel, dreading her extraction time.

She was sitting on the balcony, a bold move for an assassin of her caliber, but at this point she couldn’t bring herself to care if someone shot her; maybe the world would be a better place after her death.

“What are you thinking about?” A voice sounded from within the hotel room, a voice belonging to the only person in the world that could sneak up on her like that. A voice that belonged to her one soft spot.

And there you were, standing with your hands shoved into your pockets like a shy school kid, even if you hadn’t held that sort of innocence in a long, long time.

She tilts her head down slightly, but not before you catch the blush spreading quickly across her face, which was framed beautifully by the pale moonlight from outside.

“Just you,” she smirked, doing well to hide the morbid topic she had truly been entrenched in, not wanting to dampen the mood when you had risked a lot to show up here.

Speaking of, she wasn’t sure where your mission was, but it definitely was not in Paris, so how did you get here? And why were you putting your neck on the line just to see her?

“Well it turns out I have impeccable timing then,” you tease, choosing to drop the obvious lie she had told. She could put all of her walls up, fool the entire world, but there was no veil of hers you couldn’t see straight through.

“How are you here?” She breathed, hesitant to really believe you were there, even as you walked out onto the balcony towards her.

“I have my ways,” you shrug, she doesn’t need to know what you did just to get a moment alone with her. “This place is beautiful at night,” you change the subject, wanting to use this time to talk about things outside of your shared occupation.

Luckily she goes along with it, nodding in agreement and turning to look at the night sky that was illuminated by the many lights of the city.

You shift, swinging up onto the railing and letting your legs dangle off the side of the, 23rd floor; if you remember correctly. Apparently you didn’t have much of an aversion to death either.

A comforting silence falls between the two of you and you decide to close your eyes and focus on the cool night wind running through your hair and the sounds of the city dozens of feet below you. It wasn’t often or, at all, really that either of you had the chance to just sit and do nothing besides enjoy the other's company and neither of you were about to let this moment pass without stopping to let it imprint in your memories.

You opened your eyes and turned to watch Natalia now. You were so in love with the girl it bordered on obsession, but you had never told her so in words. You hoped she knew; that she could tell from your actions alone, but a part of you needed to make sure that she did.

“I love you Natalia.”

The words startle her, and you can’t tell if it’s because of the actual meaning behind them or just because you had broken the peaceful atmosphere you had found yourselves in.

You hoped it was the latter.

She turned to you then, unsure of what to say, but not wanting to stay silent she whispered, “I know you do.”

You turn your face back to the sky in an effort to hide your relieved expression from the girl, but you know she can see so you adopt a blank look instead, the one you use when appearing void of all emotion.

At least you told her, you think to yourself. She knows and that’s all that matters. She didn’t need to say it back because you knew she felt the same way. You saw it in her eyes everytime she looked at you. She was just scared of what admitting it out loud might mean for the two of you and you understood that; it was why you had waited so long to tell her.

Natalia was not a mind reader though and took your actions for disappointment in her. She hated herself for being so weak when you were so brave and it broke her heart thinking that you didn’t know she loved you right back.

Needing to leave so you could get back to where you were supposed to be, you get up, making sure to leave the small item that had been hidden in your pocket in your wake.

A satisfied smile graced your face as you exited her room and walked away.

Not sure of what to do, it takes her a few minutes to move back into the room, but when she finally does, she notices the shiny gleam of something on the railing where you had been sitting.

It was a ring.

Just a small, thin band, something that would be easy to hide, even from people who were constantly scrutinizing her every move.

She took it quickly, as if it might disappear at any moment, before packing her things and heading to the extraction point.

Natasha wiped the tears that had fallen from her face as she reminisced about the moment where you had practically proposed to her.

She smiled though, as the memory of your true existence had almost completely wiped the nightmarish version from her mind.

She wasn’t able to dwell on that small victory for long though, as her mind vaulted itself into another, much darker memory.

6 months post Paris

You both had been called to Petrovitch’s office. It wasn’t an unusual occurrence and definitely not cause for alarm as you both were among the top performing agents.

Expecting a mission briefing, it took you both by surprise when you were met with Petrovitch seemingly in the middle of a meeting with an unknown man.

You both moved to the side of the room as he finished speaking with him, their slimy hands clasping together to seal whatever deal they had just arranged.

“Ah there they are, my deadliest weapons, my proudest accomplishments.” He slapped a hand on each of your shoulders, a show of power, of control.

“This one,” he gestured to you, “is yours,” he smiled then, a gross, wicked grin that sent chills down your spine.

It dawned on you then, why you were really here; you were simply a pawn, an object to be traded for money or information or god knows what else. There was also nothing you could do to stop it. All you could feel in that moment however, was relief that it was you and not her.

Never her.

This place you were at now was an absolute shithole, but at least it was familiar. The rules were known and all it took was obeying to stay alive. This new party, well you had no idea what to expect.

You desperately wanted to make eye contact with her, but there was no way you could without it being blatantly obvious.

“Follow me,” the dark-haired man ordered and you moved from your position next to Natalia, your legs feeling like lead as you walked toward the door. The portal that would separate you from her for the rest of time.

You moved to shut the door behind you, glancing over your shoulder as you did, allowing you to finally lock eyes with your love. In that split second you had before it closed you tried to make sure that she knew it wasn’t her fault, that you would be okay, and that you loved her.

Then your sight line was cut off from those sad, green eyes as you walked away, the latch ringing loudly in your ears, and Natalia didn’t even bother to hide her fear from Petrovitch.

“Do you know why I called you in here, huh?” The man had the audacity to speak to her, to taunt her with her loss.

She glared at him then as she pieced it all together. He must have known, somehow, but you had been so careful.

“I wanted to see the look on your face as they were taken away. And you didn’t disappoint.”

She clenched her jaw hard in an effort to keep her anger at bay, but that action alone was enough to cause the man to laugh in her face.

“You two were so funny. Thinking you could sneak around without getting caught. You were subtle, I’ll give you that, but I see everything.”

Still she didn’t bite, even if all she wanted to do was kill the man where he stood and then burn this place to the ground.

“This place,” he waved a hand around for emphasis, “is not one for friends, for allies. I thought you knew that.” He cocked his head then, his methodical pacing coming to a stop right in front of her, daring her to make a move against him.

And she was so close to smacking the smug look off of his face, but she couldn’t give him this satisfaction, not after all he had done to her.

Noticing her increasing anger at him, the man decided to give a final push. “Do you know who that was?”

Of course she didn’t, but he felt the need to rub it in her face as much as possible. To break her, she supposed; she hated to admit that it was working. You were her weak spot, and he knew it.

“I’m not going to tell you,” she could practically feel him preening at his own comment. “All you need to know is that he represents an organization that specializes in, hmm, breaking people in the most archaic ways, in the name of science of course; until they outlive their usefulness that is.”

That’s it, she wasn’t going to let him stand there all smugly after slandering your name by spelling out how you were going to be tortured and killed. “You bastard.”

“There she is,” he chuckles before backhanding her across the face.

A knock on the door before two guards come in.

Petrovitch turns, finally addressing someone that wasn’t her. “Take her, remind her of what happens when you forget your place.”

Natasha snaps back to the present then, not sure if she could handle remembering what had happened to her next.

The scars littering her mind and body were reminder enough.

And anyways, Clint was at her door, telling her that she needed to come down and eat something. He wouldn’t be bothering her if there wasn’t an important reason for her to get up so she hastily wiped her eyes and followed him down the stairs.

The ring you gave her weighing heavily on her finger, and her mind.

Tags

natasha romanoff x reader natasha romanoff black widow marvel fanfiction marvel imagine natasha romanoff x you black widow x reader natasha romanoff imagine

384 notes View Post

seera-li

3 years ago

Beefy older Nat walks into their apartment to see reader trying to move a heavy couch cause something fell behind it but reader is just failing at it. So Nat uses those big beefy arms to move the couch and reader is just like entranced by Nat’s muscles and Nat teases reader.

Beefy Nat could do literally anything to me and I would agree 1000%!

warnings: beefy!older!nat x younger!small!reader, size kink and size difference. sfw

You knew you should’ve waited for Natasha to move the couch, because now? Well, you’re halfway across the living room, remote in your hand, and extremely tired from attempting to push back the extra large wine red sofa.

To be fair, the sofa was big... as in excessively big, maybe it was just you and your small frame, or the fact that your wife was a woman with a large stature that almost challenged of that Steve’s.

Still, who needed that big of a sofa right? Right...

Whatever. You’re here now, half-way there and back to it’s original spot, but it’s futile. Every groan and push of your hand barely dents the furniture and you’re there standing in the middle of your living room with a sweaty face and heaving chest.

You frown to yourself and give the couch a kick.

“Stupid fuckin’ thing... IKEA had better deals than this...” You grumble to yourself as you huff once more and get into positive to try again.

“Y’know,” the voice makes your eyes wide and body jump in surprise. When you turn, you find said red-head leaning against the arch frame with a grin as she watches you. “As much as I enjoyed that, you could’ve asked.”

You watch her stride across the apartment with no more than five steps before she stands in front of you. Her tall figure towering over you with a grin before she leans and takes your lips into her own.

“You need help, baby?”

Her breath fans against your lips like feathers and you whimper at the edge of her touch.

“‘M so tired from pushin’, Natty...”

Her chuckle fills the room before she pulls away.

“Okay, sunshine,” she turns to the couch and cracks her knuckles in preparation. “Say less.”

You practically stand there, wide eyed, and bambazolled as the redhead pushes the sofa back to its original place with ease - no sweat, no grunt, not a blink.

It should be leaving your frustrated and perhaps annoyed but at the sight of her back muscle working through the thin fabric of her Lululemon shirt, you grow aroused at the sight of those large arms caging you in and slipping in between your —

“There we go,” her voice snaps you back and she looks at you with pink cheeks. “Y’alright, princess?”

You bite your lip and nod, swaying uncomfortably in your spot before you realize that you can finally sit at a good distance from the TV.

“T-Thank you... y’know, for the sofa,” you beam up at her in gratitude and the older woman could help but grin at your small voice.

She takes your chin into her hands and lifts your head up - inches away just from your face.

“Anything for my girl.”

Tags

marvel natasha romanoff x reader mcu natasha romanoff black widow natasha romanov black widow x reader beefy!nat older!nat

523 notes View Post

seera-li

3 years ago

Natasha x reader.

Natasha has a nightmare and reader hears from her room so she goes to comfort her and they both fall asleep in the end

warning: best friend!natasha x fem!reader, best friend to lovers trope, slight angst? mutual pinning, and sad nat :(

Her room is quaint but ever so full of her personality. With her white coated rug and fancy little Eames chair, you frown knowing that even in her sleep, Natasha finds no serenity.

Instead as you enter and find her whimpering and turning under her duvet, you rush to her aid. Worry present on your features before you wake her up in fear that she might hurt herself.

“Natty?”

You’re hopeful that your voice will lull her back to the land of the living and when it does, a sigh of relief falls so effortlessly from your lips.

Victory is short lived when you find her looking at you in distress. With brows pinched and lips quivering, a hand cups her cheek out of empathy.

“You okay?” You ask, though you’re more than aware that she isn’t. You’re giving her the opportunity to open up to you, on her own terms and on her own field. “Bad dream?”

She nods carefully, but melts within your touch. It flutters something inside of your chest, mixing with the guilt of falling in love with your best friend.

“Was about you,” she confesses. Her eyes flutter close in shame but you’re there to remind her that she’s not alone.

“You don’t have to talk about it, Natty,” you say, voice gentle and understanding that this, her trauma and her past, is a hard experience to go through again. You’re in no place, regardless of your friendship with the woman, to condemn her back.

She nods, grateful for your understanding. Though her fears return when she realizes that once you leave, she’ll be alone once more. Another night spent cold and heartless, a feat that she struggles to deal with every day until you came into her life.

And so through a quivering lip and flushed cheeks, she turns to you in hopes of an answer. “Will you stay?”

You freeze in your spot. Never have you slept in her bed with her beside you. Sure you’ve done it in the couch during nights dedicated to spending time with her but never alone in her room where vulnerability and trust are at stake.

Unsure, you look at her to confirm that you had heard correctly. “You want me to?”

Natasha shrugs, nearly embarrassed but still ever so truthfully in what she wants. The mere thing you adored about her, her honesty and while to some, her bluntness.

“If that’s alright with you,” she says.

Her words make a grin sprout on your chapped lips, but it’s when you nod that confirms your eagerness.

“I would love nothing more.”

Tags

marvel natasha romanoff x reader mcu natasha romanoff black widow natasha romanov natasha romanoff x you black widow x reader natasha romanoff imagine natasha romanov x reader

242 notes View Post

seera-li

3 years ago

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZSJgfUx1s/

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZSJgfXcGN/

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZSJgfH6up/

The first one...,,,🤰

THE FIRST OH MYG OFhifdc

BUT THE LAST??S??XSBHDB that scene was so cute omg

12 notes View Post

seera-li

3 years ago

Oh woww!! I love your new Colourful series, it's really good!! I'm really interested because their relationship started off really fast and quick so I'm looking forward to where it goes👀

The way you set up the whole reveal of Natasha's personality with the temptation of snooping online and in person, then feeling disappointed when the relationship and Nat's personality doesn't quite meet expectations was also done really well- If you meant it as a re-occurring theme lol🥰

The "lore" of the red soul bonds and the destructiveness (murder suicides) contrasted with the super strong life changing bonds was something I really enjoyed as well. I'm not sure if this is meant to be a dark Nat series, but I'm really enjoying seeing her true colours, she is so charismatic- suave (as you said💕) and like a dream almost yet she seems so jealous and possessive of what is "hers" like the first few chapters where she is uncharacteristically anxious, it is written super well!! I feel like Natasha is already very attached to reader because this is her first soul bond, and I suspect something she was super looking forward to after defecting from the red room

Also I'm not sure if you remembered an old comment I made on your other series but I'm really happy to read a somewhat 'darkish' series about Natasha falling for reader this time! Your writing has also gotten a lot better, the scene transitions are smoother and make more sense!! I'm also a personal fan of the plot as I'm interested to see how you write Nat falling for the ""original"" this time, we all know what happened with Katya haha

I tried to send this as an ask twice but my tumblr is acting out so I'm doing this as a reblog instead😅

Colorful - Mini Chapter 6.5

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 4.5 Part 5 Part 6

But it turns out, there are a lot of expectations.

You wake up to more missed calls and text messages than you’ve ever had in your entire life.

ClaireBear: HUNTY! WTF?!

ClaireBear: CALL ME BACK THIS INSTANT OR I AM GOING ON TIKTOK ABOUT HOW MY SISTER IS THE BLACK WIDOWS SOUL BOND

ClaireBear: I swear to fucking all my lort hoebag if you don’t call me back by tonight I’m telling MeeMaw and I’m going over there with the receipts.

Ugh. 15 year olds are fun. You do need to call her though.

Yari: SO I was about to text you because I was a little concerned that you haven’t come home in like a week, but I don’t pry. But girl. Next time maybe tell me before I see it on TMZ. We’re friends… also are you moving out? Also are you still coming tonight?

You are friends. New friends but, she’s your roommate and you like her and you really should have let her know you weren’t dead this week.

Grubs: LOL OH MY GOD (shit ton of emojis)

Texts from unknown numbers and people you kinda knew in high school, your cousin in Birmingham and…

Ponyboy: Fuck you. I would have told you. I would have told you first.

Fuck.

You crawl out of bed, Natasha still sound asleep beside you, and go take a shower, scrubbing away the makeup you didn’t bother to take off last night.

She’s still sleeping when you dress yourself back in her clothes and walk into her kitchen to make her coffee and toast.

When she finally does emerge from down the hall, you’re reminded again of why you don’t really drink and you smirk a little into your coffee at her obvious struggle.

But she looks so cute like this -- soft and a little disoriented -- messy red braid, baggy gray shorts, smudged black eyeliner. She looks very normal. Very human. Very attainable.

But the texts and calls are rolling harsh in your stomach and they are a rude reminder of something you already knew--. This was too fast. You weren’t ready. And you didn’t trust your gut which is making itself so well known now you’re not even sure you can drink anymore coffee.

Still you smile when she walks up behind you in her cozy, vulnerable space, and wraps her arms around you and kisses your cheek. You are so happy, so relieved, that despite all of your discomfort and uncertainty, when her lips touch your cheek and her hands brush the bare skin of your abdomen, your bond doesn’t seem to reflect your concerns. It’s the same smoky, shiny red that it usually is.

And you want to keep it like that forever.

You’re so sick of watching gold turn to sand.

But this started way too fast and even though you know she won’t agree, you have to slow it down if it’s going to stand a chance.

You tried that before once. You thought everything would be ok as soon as that beautiful boy touched you and your souls connected. As far as you were concerned, you might as well have gotten married at that frat party covered in beer wearing someone else's dress. You were destined.

And you tried so hard for so long and so did he and it got… so ugly.

Maybe if you’d actually taken the time to fall in love with each other instead of just assuming that you should, you could have both saved yourselves a lot of pain.

And you promised yourself you would never again be the girl who lived for her soulbonds. You’d make your own way in the world.

Then the second you meet your next soulbond you're tripping all over yourself to do the same thing - keep them happy, make them love you - even though you know how that ends.

Pain pain pain. On both ends.

You squeeze the hands she has wrapped around your waist before carefully untangling yourself and making your way further into her kitchen to pour her a mug of coffee. (Her own coffee. That you’d just taken the liberty to make).

She takes the mug from you graciously and sits herself at her kitchen counter before asking, “So what should we do today?”

You tense a little and school your face before turning back around from the coffee pot to face her and say as casually as you can, “Well, I need to go back to my place in a few.”

She looks confused. “What? Why?” She asks.

You sigh.

“Natasha I haven’t been home since Wednesday. It’s Saturday morning, I have literally been wearing your underwear, Babe,” you laugh a little. “I just need to go home for a while.”

“OK,” she’s quick to agree, “Let me just change real quick, I can take you by your place to get some stuff.”

“No,” you cut her off a little more harshly than you meant to but you stop yourself and start again. “No, I can take the train, the station is right across the street. It’ll be faster anyways. Also, I have plans tonight.”

She goes still and her eyes narrow and you know what she’s thinking when she asks in monotone, “What plans?”

He’s here now. She knows. And that’s what she thinks your plans are.

You fight the urge to roll your eyes and get defensive. Because those AREN’T your plans and you’re allowed to have a life. You drain the rest of your coffee.

“My roommate, Yari, she’s a photographer,” you calmly explain. “She has a showing tonight in a little gallery in Chelsea. You know, cheap wine and shitty cheese plates, but it’s a big deal for her.”

“Oh,” Natasha’s stiff shoulders sag. “That’s great. Can I come?”

What, no. And also how rude....

“Um,” you start. “I don’t… I don’t think that’s the best idea. This is a big moment for her, and, in case you haven’t noticed, you and I tend to pull a lot of focus. I don’t want to upstage her at her own show.”

It’s the truth but it’s only one of them and it’s the easier one and you just hope she can accept that as gracefully as she took her coffee.

“Yeah, ok that makes sense.” She sounds disappointed but not mad. “So you’re coming back here after, then?”

You swallow. “I’m not sure,” That’s a lie. You’re sure you aren’t. “I don’t know what the after party plans are.” She looks so sad, “But either way, let’s get brunch tomorrow, ok?” you give her what you hope is a reassuring smile.

“Yes. Absolutely!” she agrees quickly. “I’ll pick you up in the morning at 11 if… if you don’t come back tonight.”

You flash her a big grin as you make your way out of the kitchen and towards the elevator to leave. “Sounds great!” you say. “See you in the morning!”

“(Y/N),” she stops you as your hand pushes the down button. “I really do hope you come back here tonight.”

“We’ll see!” you say much more cheery than you feel just as the elevator doors slide open to take you back down into the world.

Tags: @hoeforwandanat @krispytidalwavesheep @blackxwidowsxwife

Tags

natasha romanoff x reader soulmate natasha romanoff black widow natasha romanov mcu x reader soulmarks natasha romanoff x you mcu fic nataha x reader

81 notes View Post

seera-li

3 years ago

You be out here making me soft😭 This is really sweet, I appreciate it💕🥺

HAPPY FANFIC WRITERS APPRECIATION DAY!!!!!

I want to thank all of you wonderful writers that share your amazing works with us. I hope that you all know how much happiness & joy that you have given to me & I’m sure so many others. Getting to read your fantastic stories have put so many smiles on my face & have made my days so much brighter. I’m sending out love to all of you, REALLY THANK YOU ALLL FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART!!!! You are all FABULOUS!!!!! Here are some of the terrific writers that I have read from this past year,

@thorfanficwriter @what-is-your-plan-today @bolontiku @tilltheendwilliwrite @wordynerdygurl @sweater-daddiesdumbdork @sagechanoafterdark @jewels2876 @jobean12-blog @that-damn-girl @jay-and-dean @roonyxx @denisemarieangelina @joannaliceevans-fanficblog @the–sad–hatter

@americancowgirl19 @anathewierdo @angrythingstarlight @beccaanne814 @beyondspaceandstars @bitsandbobsandstuff @bonkywobble @buckstaybucky @buckybarnesdiaries @buckycuddlebuddy @buckysknifecollection @bugsbucky @callmeluna @carryonmywaywardcaptain @chevyharvelle @crispychrissy @cuddles-with-bucky @datfandombitch @elatedmarvel @fandom-basurero @fangirlovestuff @hannahshattuck @helloimanavenger @high-functioning-lokipath @honeyloverogers @howlingmedic @imagine-assembling-the-avengers @imaginedreamwrite @imagining-supernatural @just-the-hiddles @katymacsupernatural @ladytodd @lokibug @loki-hargreeves @lostinthoughtsandfeelings @luci-in-trenchcoats @magellan-88 @marvelgirl7 @mostly-marvel-musings @navybrat817 @original-wintersoldier @percywinchester27 @plus-size-reader @samwilsons-pillowpecs @shield-agent78 @shy-violet-soul @smediumsmeatbae @specialagentlokitty @spinsterlocity-writes @starlight-loki @starlightcrystalline @supernaturallymarvelous @sunflowerxbarnes @sunriserose1023 @talesmaniac89 @thatfangirl42 @the–blackdahlia @the-emo-asgardian @theycallmebecca @tuiccim @thinkinghardhardlythinking @twittytelly @vodka-and-some-sass @waiting4inspiration @waywardnerd67 @whisperlullaby @world-of-aus @writingfromkitchenator @writingsoftheloser @why-did-i-write-this @xbuchananbarnes

And I hope that if you haven’t check out their work you do, I’d highly recommend them & so many others on here. It would take forever to list all the wonderful & talented writers on here, but I really want to thank each & every one of you that post on here, because you have given me so much joy!!! All of

And I love & appreciate you all so much🤗🤗🥰🥰😍😍❤️❤️!!!!!

135 notes View Post

seera-li

3 years ago

no i wanted to say u but that sounds weird so i said ur

I- okay? 😭 I mean like.. I appreciate it?

Tags

im flattered not marvel am i being flirted w on tumblr rn but not interested in relationships :)

0 notes View Post

seera-li

3 years ago

only pretty faces: saccharine

| natasha x fem!reader | part one, two, three, four, five, six, seven |

summary: She’ll find you. She’ll find you. She’ll find you. She’ll–

warnings: r being completely batshit insane AGAIN lol, FLUFF FINALLY : rated [T]

a/n: god im over it now i just wan them 2 be happy

Keep reading

Tags

marvel natasha romanoff x reader mcu natasha romanoff black widow natasha romanov natasha romanoff x you black widow x reader natasha romanoff imagine natasha romanov x reader

243 notes View Post

seera-li

3 years ago