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Goddamn, she’s tired. Tired isn’t even the word for it; it describes the direction, but it doesn’t grasp the dimension of utter exhaustion Natasha feels. Not. One. Bit.
Everything hurts as she walks up to the group of men, all waiting for Thor to take Loki to some place far away from Earth, with hopefully no way of ever coming back.
Space. Other planets. Aliens. Gods. She’s seriously questioning her mental state.
She really thought she’d seen it all, but apparently the world is still able to surprise her. She isn’t sure what to make of all that yet. There hadn’t exactly been time to process during the last couple of days, but she isn’t keen on processing it; she’d rather forget it ever happened.
If it all could be a very absurd nightmare, she’d take it.
Her ribs sting painfully with each breath she takes, and she knows she’s got a few of them broken. She fixed a couple of the deeper cuts she carried away from the battles, as well as a rather nasty gash on her stomach, with makeshift bandages in the bathroom of that shawarma place, but they still need proper stitches. Add the concussion and her sheer exhaustion to the mix, and every doctor would have her on bedrest for days.
But it’s not like she can just slip away; she’s an Avenger now, one of the good guys — there is no time to be just an ordinary human. Because humanity means vulnerability, now more than ever, and it’s a side a superhero shouldn’t have, right? So the stitches will need to wait just a little longer, as well as the bedrest.
She isn’t up for saying much as she watches Thor and Loki disappear. She’s just glad they’re gone, and hopes she’ll never see them again. This world alone can be horrible enough.
She hands Bruce his bag, trying to keep her face neutral, with her shoulder still aching from their fight, and sends him a reassuring smile.
It’s not his fault. But it doesn’t mean she isn’t scared of the green monster.
She nods in Tony’s direction when he takes Banner to his lab.
And then they’re finally alone, except for Steve, who’s looking at her with furrowed eyebrows. “You good?”
He’s the only soldier on the team, meaning he‘s trained to watch out for his comrades. Natasha knows she can’t fool him, so she doesn’t attempt to.
“Worrying will give you wrinkles, old man,” Natasha replies instead, with a smile that gets harder to keep upright the longer she stands here on this sidewalk. “Go home, Rogers. It’s nothing a shower and a beer can’t fix.”
He doesn’t believe her; hell, she isn’t sure if she believes herself. But he nods.
“Alright.” He pats her shoulder, carefully, one might add, and shakes Clint’s hand. “See you around, Natasha. Clint.”
“Bye, old man.”
Clint keeps his eyes trained on Steve’s figure disappearing between cars, not saying anything for a while. But Natasha doesn’t need him to.
“I’m fine,” she tells him.
“We promised to be honest.”
“It’s just some bruises. It’ll heal.”
Clint turns his head, a deep frown etched into his forehead. “You want to come home with me? Laura and I would be happy to have you; you know that.”
“I’ll visit soon, I promise. I just want some sleep, honestly.”
“Tash-“
“Clint. It isn’t your fault.”
He kicks his feet against the ground, eyes trailing over the damaged buildings visible in the distance. “I could’ve killed you.”
“No,” she says softly, putting a hand on his shoulder, squeezing reassuringly. “I wouldn’t have let you. I’d never let you.”
Clint’s eyes glimmer with unshed tears, and Natasha looks away. She’s not ready to console him. It’s all too fresh, too disturbing.
“Go home, Clint. Say hi to the kids. Give them a hug. You’ll feel better.”
“And what will help you feel better?”
Natasha chuckles and shifts her weight from one leg to the other, trying to ease some of the pain pulsing through her left leg. “Ibuprofen,” she replies truthfully, “and sleep.”
Without warning, he pulls her in for a hug, and Natasha holds her breath so she doesn’t groan in pain until he lets go.
“Call,” he demands. “I mean it.”
“Will do,” she promises with a nod. She isn’t sure if she means it, though.
A little bit of time. That’s what she needs. That’s what had helped many times before.
She watches as he walks to the car, waves as he gets in, and stays for a while until the vehicle disappears from sight.
Then she limps to the nearest bench, slumps against the backrest, and finally allows herself to feel the pain.
For a second it’s all-consuming. Literally every single muscle in her body aches, and there is no way of telling how many ribs are broken. Many.
Carefully, she pulls up her shirt and lifts the makeshift bandage on her stomach, where one of these things grazed her with a spear.
The bleeding has slowed down, which is a good sign, but it hasn’t stopped like she hoped it would. And the edges look too frayed for it to heal on its own. It’ll definitely need stitches.
“Fuck,” she curses quietly under her breath as she presses the gauze back against the oozing wound. She hates needles.
She calls the only person she can think of.
“Romanoff,” a familiar voice greets her with a stern and formal tone that immediately turns soft. “Hi.”
Natasha pictures Maria on the bridge of the helicarrier, turning away from her subordinates to look out the window.
She immediately feels her body relaxing at the thought of her and allows her eyes to close for a moment. “Hi there.”
A deep sigh. “I’m so glad to hear your voice, Tasha. I…” Maria falls silent.
“Me too.”
“Where are you?”
“Just sent two gods to space.”
Maria chuckles, but Natasha can easily hear the exhaustion. “It’s been a weird couple of days.”
“Amen to that. I know you’ve got a lot going on right now, but is there a chance you could send someone to my location to pick me up?”
“Are you hurt?”
Natasha both hates and loves the way Maria’s tone immediately shifts from gentle to commanding.
“Just a little bruised. But the subway’s still out, and-”
“I’ll send a car; it will be there in ten minutes, tops.”
“Thank you.” She can do ten minutes.
“Just some bruises?”
“Yeah.” Natasha’s phone beeps, signaling that she’ll be out of battery soon. “I’ll call you later, okay?”
“Stay safe.”
“Are you worried for me?”
“Just…” Maria sighs. “Stay out of trouble. For once, please.”
Natasha chuckles into the phone before hanging up.
She shifts her gaze towards the sky, soaking up a few rays of sunshine in an attempt to not think about all the close calls they had these past few days or about Coulson’s death. But it’s helpless. Vivid pictures flicker through her pounding head — of Loki, of Hulk, of aliens and blood.
Death has been her companion all her life, following her, transforming her into who she is today. It’s everything but a stranger, and still… losing Coulson hits her hard.
He’s been her handler for a while before Fury moved her to the Avengers, and he eventually became a friend. He was the best man Natasha has ever come across. One of a handful of good men in this world. Honest and loyal to the bone. And now he’s gone forever. It’s just not fair.
A car stops in front of her, and the agent that’s driving it barely looks old enough to do so. He stares at her with wide, frightened eyes. Of course Maria signed him up for simple jobs like driving. Poor guy. He probably thought he’d be braver once he became an agent.
She gets in wordlessly and keeps her eyes on the roads they’re passing and on the damage the battle left behind—shattered glass, smashed cars, debris on the sidewalk, and smoke everywhere.
It can all be fixed. The buildings, the streets, her wounds.
But Coulson is gone. And it’s going to change this world forever.
The rookie agent drops her off in the garage of the headquarters, and Natasha takes the elevator to the private quarters without stopping at medbay.
Her apartment isn’t huge. It holds a tiny bedroom with an en-suite bathroom and an open space with a kitchen counter, a small two-seater couch, and a TV. She doesn’t even own a table.
And still, it’s home. It’s her first home, to be honest. They’re still the same quarters they gave her after her defection to S.H.I.E.L.D. years ago, but she’s never considered leaving. It stands for the chance she didn’t deserve.
And besides, the room across from hers is Maria’s.
Maria Hill.
Deputy Director. Friend.
Natasha hasn’t tried to find another title for her because it would mean that she needs to question what’s going on between them. And she thinks that so far neither of them was willing to do that.
She doesn’t mind. She knows that her heart is beating a little faster when Maria is around.
And she knows that Maria is the only one she wants to see after a bad mission.
Maria is the only one who’s ever seen her cry. The only one Natasha allows to treat her wounds. The only one who can wake her up from her night terrors.
She’s Natasha’s rock.
And no matter how much her heart aches for Maria to be hers sometimes, it’s enough. It’s already more than Natasha will ever deserve to have.
Whenever Maria looks at her as if she knows exactly what Natasha is thinking, Natasha reminds herself of that and turns away before she fucks it up by asking for too much. She doesn’t want to tempt fate.
So when Natasha reaches her quarters, she looks at Maria’s door for a moment and feels nothing but gratefulness for having what she gets to have.
Then she turns her back and slips into her own quarters.
She leaves a trail of clothes on her way to the bathroom as she undresses down to her underwear and rummages through her first-aid kit with one hand while the other keeps the makeshift bandage pressed against her stomach.
Even after growing up having to stitch herself up, she hates it — the blood, the stinging pain, the smell of antiseptic. She cleans the wounds carefully, hissing a string of curse words into the quiet of the room.
She’s about to begin when a soft knock on her bathroom door startles her enough to drop the needle.
“It’s me,” Maria’s voice comes through the door. “Can I come in?”
“Yeah,” Natasha replies, trying to hide the exhaustion in her voice.
Maria pushes the door open, and her blue eyes immediately settle on Natasha’s green before assessing the damage.
“Oh, Tasha,” Maria breathes so softly, so carefully, that Natasha fucking trembles.
Immediately, Maria’s hands find their way to her face, catching her with a softness that feels almost too much for a second.
“It’s okay, you’re okay,” Maria says.
And before Natasha knows it, she’s seated on the toilet lid and Maria is on her knees in front of her.
“It looks worse than it is,” she hears herself say, but Maria ignores that.
Instead, she carefully palpates the giant purple bruise along Natasha’s ribs, checking how many of them are broken.
Natasha winces when she presses a little too hard.
“Sorry,” Maria mumbles absentmindedly, her cold fingertips continuing their journey. “Five, I think.”
Natasha lets out a breath. It’s going to be annoying to deal with.
“Lean back,” Maria instructs her then.
Natasha watches as she picks up the suturing materials and carefully balances them on the edge of Natasha’s bathtub.
But she does as told and shivers when her back meets the cold tiles. She lets her eyes close and tries not to cry as the exhaustion settles in under Maria’s steady hands tending to her wounds.
“It was bad,” she admits quietly. “It was really bad.”
“I know.”
“They almost nuked the city.”
Maria swallows audibly. “Yeah.”
“There was a moment today where I was sure we wouldn’t… actually, there were many. I…” She doesn’t know how to finish that sentence without falling apart.
“It’s okay to be scared.”
Natasha opens her eyes to see Maria’s face, but the brunette is focused on her work. “I wasn’t scared for me,” she clarifies carefully, willing to blame the admission on her concussion and the remnants of the battle.
Maria’s hands falter, and she barely glances up, only meeting Natasha’s gaze for a second before she returns her focus to Natasha’s stitches. “I was. Scared for you.”
She seems more emotional than Natasha has ever seen her in the many years she’s known her.
“Hey,” Natasha says softly, waiting until Maria meets her gaze. “I’m okay.”
Natasha reaches for Maria’s face and carefully brushes back some strands that have fallen out of her bun. She tucks them behind the brunette’s ear and lets her fingertips linger on soft skin for a moment.
Maria pauses and settles her hand on Natasha’s thigh, blue eyes never straying away from green ones. “Tasha,” she says, half pleading and half warning, when Natasha’s fingertips brush against the large bruise on Maria’s temple.
“I know.”
“No,” Maria whispers back, “no, you don’t.”
Natasha’s heart beats faster, and loud enough to pound in her ears, too. She feels dizzy, but she can’t take her eyes off the woman in front of her.
She could’ve lost her today.
The realization has her gasping for air, black dots clouding her vision. But Maria’s hands are right there to catch her.
“Breathe,” she hears faintly as she falls deeper into those blue eyes before she realizes that she’s actually falling forwards.
But Maria’s hands catch her by her shoulders.
“Sorry,” she mumbles, having to try harder than she should to lean back.
Definitely a concussion. A bad one too.
She rubs a hand over her face and blinks a few more times until Maria’s perfectly sculpted face turns sharper again.
“You said you weren’t injured. You said you’re just a little bruised.”
“’M sorry.”
Maria sighs. “It’s okay. You saved the world. I’ll let you off the hook this time. But can you stay still just a few more minutes so I can finish the stitches?”
Natasha nods. She keeps her eyes off Maria’s face just to be safe.
“Here,” Maria says eventually, holding out two pills and a glass for Natasha to take.
Natasha takes both without double-checking, trusting Maria to do what’s needed. The relief she feels when the water slides down her throat is immense.
“Come, I’ll help you get cleaned up a bit, and then you’re going to bed.”
Natasha wants to tell her that she can do it on her own, that she did it many times before, but it’s so nice to be cared for, so unbelievably sweet, that she doesn’t dare to speak up.
She allows Maria to finish undressing her, her blue eyes never straying somewhere else than her face, her touches featherlight and yet so sure of herself.
The brunette wraps her in a towel before she starts the shower and throws away the suture material.
“Warm or cold?” Maria asks, holding a hand into the stream and looking back at Natasha, even though the answer has always been the same one whenever they’ve done this in the past.
The feeling of being understood and cared for still rattles Natasha, and it takes a few seconds until she finds the words.
“Warm, please,” she hears herself replying.
It’s the first time her answer is different, and surprise scurries over Maria’s features before it morphs into a soft smile.
“Okay, I’ll place some clothes on the toilet lid while you shower. I’ll be right outside if you need anything.”
“Thank you,” Natasha mumbles quietly and gets up, careful not to pull her stitches.
Maria nods and moves to leave the bathroom, but Natasha grabs her hand and intertwines their fingers for a moment.
“No, I mean it,” she says, squeezing Maria’s hand softly. “Thank you. For all of it. For being here.”
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.” Maria’s expression remains unreadable, but her gaze never wavers, not even with the little distance between them in Natasha’s tiny bathroom.
And the thing is, they’ve both been forged by anger and hatred, growing up with violence and pain. But here, in this room, with each other, none of that matters. Because despite all the horrors that life brought upon them, none of it managed to break them.
Natasha blames it on her vulnerable state, but she does something very untypical for her then — because it’s always Maria who reaches out first, who offers a hug, a hand, a smile, or any form of contact. It’s always Maria who offers — and it’s always Natasha who gets to choose if she wants it.
This time, for the first time, she’s the one initiating it.
She gets on her toes just a little and leans close enough for Maria to understand what she’s going for, offering her the chance to pull away.
But Maria’s eyes stay fixed on Natasha’s, lips pulled into a faint smile, waiting.
So Natasha closes the distance and ghosts a faint kiss on Maria’s cheek.
Maria’s smile is as radiant as the sun when Natasha pulls back, and she squeezes Natasha’s hand in return.
“I’ll be right outside,” she says, her voice a little hoarse, as if she hasn’t spoken in a while.
“I’ll be quick.”
Maria shakes her head, her thumb brushing the back of Natasha’s hand. “Take your time. I’ll check your fridge.”
Another squeeze before Maria pulls away and steps out of the bathroom.
Natasha’s body tingles everywhere, but her lips — they’re burning hot like a wildfire.
Of course she knows that Maria feels something in return — she had known for quite some time; she’s a spy and goddamn good at it. But this… this feels different.
Maria is here right after the battle, despite being the second in command (a rather new development too; it only happened a few months ago). She has probably ten places to be at the same time, and yet… yet she puts Natasha on the top of her priority list. She puts her first.
Natasha tries to brush it off like she always does, tries to play it down because everything else might cause her to run, and she doesn’t want to. Never from Maria.
She climbs into the shower on rather shaky legs and allows the warm water to cascade down her body.
She’s glad to have a moment to collect herself after this day - this whole week, really.
The water is soothing in a way she never pictured it to be. Maria found the perfect temperature — not too warm, but enough to loosen her muscles — and Natasha allows it to wash away the remnants of the battle until she can barely keep her eyes open.
She washes her hair then, carefully, and wraps herself in the softest towel she owns.
Maria has left a set of fresh clothes for her like she said she would: a pair of oversized sweatpants and one of Maria’s larger band shirts, and Natasha could both cry and laugh at the same time because it’s a wonderful feeling to be known so well by someone.
She has to take a moment to collect herself before she proceeds, because no matter how much time passes, the Red Room is still deeply engraved into her mind. Never did she get to experience softness or care. While not everything was about pain or death, there was never a place for gentleness.
Shaking her head, Natasha checks Maria’s stitches in the mirror and wraps them carefully. Then she grabs the clothes.
She presses the shirt to her face for a second, inhaling Maria’s scent and taking comfort in it before slipping into the shirt to enjoy how soft it feels on her skin.
She finds Maria in the kitchen.
The brunette seems to be deeply engrossed in whatever she’s making at the stove, and Natasha takes a minute to watch her.
Ever since Natasha’s deprogramming years ago, they’ve migrated closer. Maria being the top of her class (in all classes, that show-off) and Natasha being the enemy, they both weren’t exactly popular, so it was natural that they stuck together. What began as a partnership of convenience transformed into quiet understanding and later into mutual respect.
The friendship came later, gradually. Early sparring sessions before sunrise, memorized coffee preferences, sitting close during boring mission debriefs and playing tic-tac-toe, checking in after a tough mission under the disguise of not wanting to eat alone.
Today, Maria knows her way around Natasha’s quarters better than Natasha does herself.
If it wasn’t for the brunette, Natasha would live off cereal and potato chips. Without Maria, her life would be as gray as the S.H.I.E.L.D.-issued clothes.
Natasha looks at Maria in her kitchen, moving around so comfortably, barefoot, softly humming under her breath, loose hair, and her throat feels dry suddenly.
Maria must’ve felt eyes on her because she turns around and sends a smile in Natasha’s direction. “How long have you been standing there?”
Natasha shrugs, pushes away from the doorframe, and pads over. “What are you making?”
“Just some scrambled eggs with whatever edible vegetables I could find. Because someone forgot to go grocery shopping like she was supposed to.”
“You did get the memo about aliens attacking the planet, right?”
“And what’s your excuse for yesterday?”
Natasha chuckles and leans over Maria’s shoulder to peer into the pan. Then she climbs onto the counter right next to the stove and scans Maria’s face. The bruise on her right temple looks worse in this light. “Did you get that checked out?”
“I did. Unlike you.”
“You know why.”
“I do. But it could’ve gone so much worse if I hadn’t been here, Tash.”
“It’s just a concussion and a small gash.”
“You almost blacked out.”
“Don’t like women falling for you?”
Maria rolls her eyes.
Natasha laughs.
They fall quiet. For a moment, just being in each other’s presence is enough. Maria makes them dinner; Natasha watches. They settle on the couch, a bottle of beer each. Almost normal.
But it isn’t, and suddenly Natasha feels all choked up.
Natasha senses the emotions welling up in her chest, and before she recognizes them, Maria places both their bowls on the coffee table and reaches out a hand.
Natasha forgoes it and sinks right into Maria’s chest, allowing Maria’s two strong arms to hold her as tight as possible as she cries silently.
Maria doesn’t whisper soft affirmations, doesn’t try to soothe the pain with phrases. She just keeps her arms wrapped around her, and Natasha sneaks hers around Maria’s stomach in return.
“I can’t believe he’s gone,” Natasha whispers with a hoarse throat and her chest tight.
“Me neither.”
“It’s not fair.”
“I know.” Maria rests her chin on Natasha’s head. “It really isn’t fair.”
“And I feel bad.”
“For what?”
Natasha doesn’t reply for a moment, unsure whether she should admit such a weakness.
Maria doesn’t push.
It’s one of the reasons Natasha trusted Maria early on, because everybody in her whole damn life wanted something from her — her skill or her body, her abilities or her knowledge. Maria never did. Still doesn’t.
Natasha swallows. “I feel bad because I’m glad it wasn’t you.”
“Survivor’s guilt,” Maria says, not addressing the obvious elephant in the room because she knows it might freak Natasha out.
But Natasha turns in Maria’s arms and looks at the brunette, really looks at her. She traces the bruise on Maria’s temple with her eyes, her jawline, the constellation of faint freckles on her nose, her eyebrows.
“I don’t want to lose you,” she admits, dipping right back into blue.
“I’m right here.” Maria reaches up to run her fingers through Natasha’s red waves, carefully untangling the half-dried locks. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You might. One day.” Natasha’s voice trembles, and she hates it, but she says it anyway because if she’s going to be vulnerable, she might as well go all in. “I don’t deserve you. Any of this. But you- you deserve the world.”
But Maria, beautiful Maria, smiles as she settles her palm against Natasha’s cheek. “Let me decide what I deserve, alright?”
Natasha swallows hard and shuts her eyes because she’s cried enough tonight, and being so honest is so much harder than fighting aliens.
Maria’s thumb keeps grazing her cheek, her palm warm against Natasha’s skin, grounding her in the moment.
“You need to tell me to stop,” Natasha whispers, keeping her eyes closed.
“Why?”
“Because I might do something stupid.”
“Do you want to do it?”
Natasha realizes that it’s Maria’s way of asking for permission because no one ever asked Natasha before.
But in this moment, Natasha also realizes that this feeling in her chest, whether Maria is around or not, is love. And she’s going to love her whether she acts on it or not. She’s in love with Maria, and there’ll never be a time or place where she won’t be.
So she takes a shaking breath and nods. “I do. I really, really do.”
“Well, how about we do it together? Would that make it less scary?”
Natasha hears the faint teasing below all of the softness, but it does the trick because it gets her to open her eyes and to chuckle nervously. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
Maria’s face is close enough that Natasha could count her eyelashes if she tried, and she doesn’t think she can breathe if she doesn’t kiss her soon.
But kissing Maria means giving up control and admitting what’s been there for so long now that it’s a part of her, but one that she had never learned how to express. It means being more vulnerable than ever before because kissing Maria Hill means letting her into her heart, and it’s the only place that was ever really hers.
But Natasha’s heart already belongs to Maria, doesn’t it? Irreversibly.
“Close your eyes, Tasha.”
Green finds blue for a moment, and Natasha recognizes what Maria is doing. She is once again offering, and all Natasha has to do is take a leap.
It’s easy then.
Her eyes fall shut, and Natasha allows herself to feel it.
She feels Maria’s breath on her face, just a split second. And then she feels Maria’s lips meeting hers. She feels the beats her heart skips, feels it stumbling into a faster rhythm, filling her whole chest. She feels Maria’s hand sliding into her hair, feels her other hand carefully tightening on Natasha’s hip. She feels those lips she’s been yearning for on hers and how her body trembles because of it. She feels each intake of breath between them as their kiss grows deeper, feels Maria pulling her closer. Feels her body temperature rising and oxygen disappearing.
Maria is kissing her.
It’s more than she ever knew it could be and all she wants to do for the rest of her life.
She slips her hands from Maria’s neck down to her hips, sneaking both hands under Maria’s shirt. Not in a sexual kind of way — it’s too soon — but she needs to know that this is real, needs to feel the warmth of Maria’s skin.
Maria lets her, even hums against her lips as Natasha rests both palms on Maria’s stomach.
They break away from each other’s lips a few moments later, out of breath and possibly a little high on oxytocin.
Natasha rests her forehead against the crook of Maria’s neck, breathing fast, but keeps her hands where they are.
Maria runs a hand up and down her back, her fingertips tracing Natasha’s spine.
She can’t come back from this.
She’s forever ruined.
“Are you okay?”
She nods and pulls back to look at Maria, the need to make sure she’s okay with this becoming stronger than her need to ground herself. “Are you?”
Maria’s bruised lips stretch into a wide smile. “More than. I’ve been meaning to do this for a while.”
“What exactly is a while?”
“Does it matter?”
Natasha considers the thought a moment. “Yeah.”
“Since you knocked out Schmitt with his tray in the canteen after he called me a dyke.”
“Masha, that was four years ago!”
Maria shrugs.
“You wanted to kiss me for four years and you never said anything?”
“It wasn’t the right time.”
Natasha stares at the brunette, her mouth hanging open.
“You were going through deprogramming still, and you were just starting to discover who you were; it wasn’t supposed to be about anything else.”
“But after, I…”
Maria shakes her head. “Tasha, I wasn’t going to ask for anything you weren’t ready to give.”
A wave of emotion washes over Natasha at the sincerity of Maria’s words, and because there are no words in any of the many languages Natasha speaks to express them, she leans in and kisses Maria again.
“Thank you,” she whispers against the brunette’s lips, leaning her forehead against Maria’s.
“Anytime.”
“It’s dangerous. Being with me.”
“I don’t care.”
“It’s going to be complicated, too.”
Maria rests both hands on Natasha’s cheeks, her blue eyes boring into Natasha’s. “I don’t care,” she says, emphasizing each word. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
…