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bishopsbeloved · 3 months

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the art of falling in love (part five)

natasha romanoff x fem reader

best friend!yelena belova, aroace!yelena belova, internalised homophobia, found family trope, coming of age, angst, fluff (eventual happy ending)

read this fic on ao3!

Death was first explained to you and Yelena when you were six; Yelena’s favourite of her mother’s pigs passed away, and you were both called in from playing outside to be sat down gravely.

“Girls… Wilbur the piggy has, ah, passed away,” Alexi told you. You stared back at him blankly.

“Do you know what that means?” added Melina more gently.

“Uh… Peter from class said his mom and dad passed away,” Yelena offered after a few moments. “And it means that, like, he can’t see them ever again, so he lives with his aunt now.”

“Yes!” said Alexi enthusiastically, before catching himself and adding in a much more solemn tone, “I mean, ah, yes… very sad. Not good.”

Melina looked at him sternly and he fell silent. “You are right, Yelena. When someone passes away, it means they are no longer with us.”

“Like when you go to the store?”

“No. When I go to the store I am always coming back, да? Passing away is permanent, and it means you never see them again.”

“Oh. But I like Wilbur,” said Yelena sadly, and you nodded in agreement.

“That is what makes life all the more precious,” Melina told you gently. “You never know when someone may pass away — only that everybody will, someday. So you must enjoy the time you have with them, my darlings, and never take it for granted.”

As the years went on and the two of you began to understand what death actually means, that first introduction to it became somewhat of a running joke between you and Yelena (because how else can humans deal with such a terrifying concept as death? You can choose to either laugh or cry, and Yelena will always choose to laugh); the idea of someone passing away will often be referred to as going to the store. For example, Alexi is probably the sole man responsible for the entirety of Ohio state’s roadkill — neither you nor Yelena can remember a car journey with him in the wheel during which some unfortunate creature has not stumbled into his path and suffered fatally for that mistake. Every time it happens, without fail, Yelena will turn around eagerly in her seat or poke her head out of the window and assess the damage before gravely announcing, “That one is definitely not coming back from store.”

It’s a euphemism that can be used in any situation — and often is, actually. Whenever the TV signal packs up (as it often does in such a rural town as your own) and the Kardashians begin to cut out awkwardly, Yelena will throw down the remote and shout in frustration “Ma! The fork thingy on the roof has gone store again,” and Melina will know exactly what she means. Or whenever your history teacher Mr Fury hobbles into class, who is so old he looks like he’s witnessed half the events he teaches you, Yelena will nudge you and whisper “he is close to store’s doorstep now, eh?” Et cetera, et cetera. The phrase gets used often.

You feel silly for your mind wandering to those words, given the circumstances. But all you can think of right now is your overwhelming hopes and prayers that Liho has not gone to the store — and that neither has your bond with Yelena. As for Natasha… well, recent times have been a cruel wake-up call.

It’s been a few hours since Melina left with the cat, and the only text you’ve gotten from her since then says cat in surgery now. Yelena has barricaded herself in your shared room — her room now, you think miserably to yourself. You have never, ever seen her so upset, not in your whole life. You don’t think you’ve ever even argued with her, outside of your usual half-hearted play wrestles. But now she’s shouted at you through your thick heavy door, a solid wall between you, putting miles between the two of you but still not enough distance to lessen the brutality of the words she hurls at you from the other side of it. Words you can’t think of for too long or tears will begin to brim in your eyes all over again. Words which you know you deserve, but ones you never thought you’d hear your best friend say to you.

Now you sit uncomfortably stiff on the couch, feeling like a stranger in the home you’ve grown up in, the silence threatening to suffocate you. You feel almost like a prisoner in your body, unable to move as you relieve the last few hours over and over in your head. There’s no doubt in your mind that Yelena is right. You are an awful person. If you weren’t, if you were better, maybe Natasha would still want you, instead of casting you aside once you began to bore her. Maybe if you were better you’d have been sensible or strong enough to not sneak around with her at all. But you’re not, and now you’ve broken apart a family you weren’t even worthy of in the first place.

Natasha is sat in the armchair opposite you, legs curled beneath her, nursing her bloody nose. Her gaze has been fixed on you for the indeterminable amount of time you’ve both been sat here, but you are too exhausted to care. For once, you have much, much bigger problems than her feelings.

Eventually, she speaks, more subdued than usual. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Your voice doesn’t sound like yours. It’s somewhere else, someone else’s, far away.

“For…” She hesitates. Like there’s something she doesn’t want to say out loud. “For not, uh. For treating you badly.”

Well, that’s not really what you expected her to say.

Your silence prompts her to flounder further. “I just— I don’t, well, I can’t really explain a lot, but I— I know I messed up. You deserved better. And I’m sorry.”

And you’re so done with her, and so little of yourself is left now that you simply stand up and walk away.

Natasha doesn’t even call after you, just kind of makes this sad and defeated little noise that makes your heart hurt. You know it would just ache even more if you turned around again, though. So you don’t. You walk the hall for a few aimless moments before your feet carry you to the only person currently home who you still have a dependable relationship with — Alexi.

His workshop, as he calls it, is adjoined to the kitchen; a tiny wooden door which he has to bend himself double to fit through, leading to the garage. This has been his space for as long as you can remember. You have no idea how he moves with such ease through it when it’s like a maze to you — huge chunks of greasy half-repaired machinery everywhere, cluttered workbenches and racks of tools and shelves of liquids labelled in his indecipherable Russian scrawl. He often has the tiny tin portable perched on a shelf squeaking out radio shows in his mothertongue which he guffaws merrily at, but as you enter now the room is peacefully quiet, save for Alexi’s disjointed hums of a thousand songs in one and the little chink noises the piece of metal he’s working on makes every time he hits it, slowly bending it into shape.

“Ah, привет! Good evening, daughter,” he says cheerfully, without even turning around as you creep up barefoot behind him. He doesn’t say anything more, and neither do you, for a while; you opt to simply sink down onto one of the wooden stools littered about the place and watch Alexi absently while he works. This doesn’t faze him at all. On the occasions where Yelena was busy without you as a kid, you would do this very thing. Alexi would simply chuckle at you and ruffle your hair with a large bearish hand, oftentimes leaving behind little smudges of black motor oil in it. You’re still in your prom outfit, though, with your hair done up intricately, so tonight he stops himself in time.

“Do you think Liho will be okay?” you ask after a while, in a very small voice.

“Oh, да,” he replies, without hesitation. Even with his back to you as he tinkers busily you can hear the sincerity in his tone. “Yes, yes. Think of what that kitty has been through already, eh? When you found him he was doing worse than that. He is, uh, tough meat. A fighter.”

Seeing Alexi so placid and unshaken in the face of tonight’s events is strangely calming and you nod, soothed by his words, before another thought strikes you. “Oh… but the vet bills.”

Alexi lets out a low but not unkind laugh. “Ah, не будь глупым, you worry so much. We will figure those out. Melina is a sly fox, has money tucked away in hidey-holes, eh?”

“But— I mean —” You twitch uncomfortably, and Alexi seems to finally cotton onto what it is that you’re really worried about. He sets down his tools with his usual gentleness, which never fails to look foreign on such a giant of a man, and turns to look at you.

“You are member of this family,” he tells you. “No matter what Yelena say. She is angry, sure, but it will blow over, eh? You love the silly little fur man, and we do too. So if these bills will help him of course we will pay it. There is no need for worry.”

“But I ruined everything,” you say quietly.

He laughs again. “Nonsense. You have not ruined any of the things, голубка.”

“But… your date night. And— Natasha,” you hiccup.

“We have date nights all the time, подсолнух, there will be others. And Natasha… well, me and your mama are knowing this for long time. Yelena will be coming round also, eventually. We will figure this all out, we are a family. She is your sister. All of the things will be okay. None of them are ruined.”

And you can’t help but cry at that, at his earnest sincerity, his certainty that things will work out — and because you love him, and he is your family. You tell him so through choked sobs, and he just looks at you softly before wrapping you into a petrol-scented bear hug, prom outfit be damned.

Maybe he’s right. Maybe everything will be okay.

Yelena sinks into another episode over the following days. She does nothing much but sit, a vacant look in her eyes, devoid of any feeling, and stare for hours at a time as though seeing something that the rest of you cannot. She has no words left to give, and drifts around on autopilot, only performing basic functional tasks when prompted to — as if they’re an afterthought. Seeing her like this wracks you with guilt in a way none of her episodes have before, because for the first time you know with a crushing certainty that this is because of you. You offer countless times to return to your parents’ house across the road, the residents of which you haven’t conversed with in months, but Alexi and Melina dismiss this as if it’s the silliest idea in the world.

“You are family,” Melina tells you firmly. “Fights happen, да? You stay.”

Even if you’re still welcome in the house you’re certainly not welcome in your usual room. Natasha offers to put you up in hers but drops this very quickly after the look that you give her, so instead a section of the loft is cleared for you. You and Alexi spend a merry Sunday together in his workshop assembling a bedframe for your new space, only to discover once you’ve made it upstairs that it’s actually too large to fit through the attic hatch, so you have to take it to bits to get it up there and then rebuild it all over again. (It doesn’t really matter though, because Alexi is so bemused by the whole thing and his own oversights that it’s impossible to be frustrated at the setback. He just grins so goofily.) When Yelena is in the shower you sneak back into her room to gather as many of your belongings as you can and begin to turn the little space into yours. Melina brings home some fairy lights from the store, you order some posters online and within a week or so you’ve organised yourself a very cozy nest amongst the mess of the loft.

Even now you’ve moved in, over half of the room is still piled high with boxes of various things and piles of junk and the distinct, cloth-draped, dust-gathering shapes of Alexi’s abandoned projects (which he insists on keeping on the basis that he might need them someday, much to Melina’s theatrical chagrin). The various artefacts throughout the room create a kind of ever-changing maze, and you remember playing up here with Yelena when the two of you were kids and it was too cold to play outside — for you, anyway, being someone who’s grown up in a relatively warm American state. To this day Yelena often scorns you for your inability to tolerate any kind of cold, and reminds you of the climates the rest of the family has lived in.

Thinking of her makes your heart involuntarily twinge, and you wince, standing from your perch on the end of your new bed in the vain hopes of shaking it off. As you do so something in the opposite corner of the room catches your eye; the neat pile of scrapbooks Melina worked on for years when you were kids. “I’m going full American mama,” she would quip, spending hours of an evening painstakingly prettying the pages laden with pictures that Alexi had taken throughout the day. You find yourself warmed by these memories, and drift over to the pile of books, settling before it. The newest scrapbooks are naturally at the top, so you shuffle through the pile until you reach the very first scrapbook Mama Melina ever made, which begins the day Yelena came home. You settle down comfortably on the floor, cross-legged like you’re a kid again, and begin to flip through its pages; the very first are adorned with pictures of Melina and Alexi in their youth, and then on their wedding day. After that is the day Yelena came home, absolutely unfazed by this strange new country and its drawling people. Every single photo has the date it was taken written beneath it in perfect cursive, and through the timeline shown you can see that it was barely two weeks into Yelena’s residency here before you and her properly met, and became firm friends. Things progress like that for two years, from when you were five until when you were seven; regular entries are made in the scrapbooks documenting road trips and school plays and lost teeth, all of which you smile upon fondly.

Halfway through the third scrapbook, Natasha comes home. You recognise one of the many pictures documenting this milestone as one that hangs large and framed with pride downstairs above the fire; a stunned, still blue-haired Natalia swathed in thermals, huddled in the corner of Alexi’s rickety old fighter jet on the journey back from the motherland, beaming widely up at whoever’s taking the photo. Despite the fact that you see it every day, seeing it alongside so many others in which she’s so bewildered but so, so happy makes your heart feel so strongly that you have to flip ahead.

You pore over the pages of the main scrapbooks with interest for a while longer, until the main timeline ends and divulges into you, Yelena and Natasha each having your own dedicated scrapbooks. You have no interest in studying your own baby photos, and given all that’s going on reliving Yelena’s would be unbearable right now, so instead you find yourself picking up Natasha’s, and pushing the others aside.

Seeing her grow up before your eyes like this is surreal. In reality you were by her side every day, and most of these changes happen so gradually that you barely even noticed them, but here are immortalised stills from throughout the years which show how she’s grown. When she first came home she hadn’t had her growth spurt yet, and still had her gentle Russian lilt which the rest of her family retains to this day. As she starts attending public school and socialising with her peers you can see that something changes very hastily within her; a light kind of fades from her eyes. The blue is bleached from her hair, and as the red fades back in its place she seems to fade a little too — into the quiet, observant Natasha that you know today. She doesn’t seem unhappy, as such, but… uncertain, and it dredges up a kind of sadness in your chest that forces you to push the book away, lest the tears in your eyes follow through with their threat to overspill.

You’ve always seen Natasha as someone so secure and sure of herself — so much so that she doesn’t feel the need to speak over anyone else in the room in order to get her opinions across. When she does speak it’s usually a quick, cutting remark that earns laughs and leaves everyone eager to hear more out of her. When she walks into a room heads turn to look at her, no matter where she goes. She knows that. She’s someone worth paying attention to. It’s never occurred to you, not once in your life, that her behaviours aren’t the result of something different. But looking at these pictures has stirred up something in you which you can’t quite describe. A deep sadness at the fact that you’ve probably never known her at all, aside from the parts of the real her that have slipped through the cracks; her Russian accent and sleepy kisses first thing in the morning, her goodnight texts, the way she doesn’t need to ask your order at drive-thrus or coffee shops, the notes she’d leave under your pillow. That’s Natasha. Not whoever this is who’s pushed you away. Not this girl who has bleached the childhood from her hair and taught herself how to be from another place.

You pile the scrapbooks back in the neat and tidy order in which you found them and crawl back to your bed, flopping into it, utterly emotionally exhausted by this trip down memory lane. You think it’s dark outside… you’re certainly tired enough to rest now, anyway, and you do; drifting in and out of an uneasy slumber, visited by vague and twisted recollections from your childhood which disappear upon your waking again, before you can grasp them properly, like the sand of your youth slipping through your fingers.

Mama Melina is a woman of science. She’s always considered herself a grounded person. She doesn’t concern herself with what she doesn’t understand, or care for (namely whatever she cannot see for certain with her own two eyes) to the extent that this is the path her career has taken, and is now what feeds her children. She is, objectively, an intellectual woman. Her analytical methods of thinking have led to scientific breakthroughs in her area of expertise, and she is renowned as an expert at her job. She did not reach this point through belief in the spiritual, or abstract. Hell, being raised in an orphanage herself, she didn’t even really believe in true romantic love until Alexi bore his whole earnest heart to her.

One day, when you were young, you came home from school and, with frightening nonchalance, came home and asked if one of your classmates had been correct in saying that people who kissed others of the same gender were hell-headed sinners. Melina abruptly halted her mundane household task and sat you down, taking one of your hands in hers.

“Sin is a fairytale,” she told you, as delicately as she could. “Nobody knows for certain whether sin or God or heaven or hell are real. To believe that is a choice, a leap of faith which certain people make. But all we know for certain is what’s here now, да? Like I am real, you are real,” she cupped your little face between her warm hands and squeezed gently, making you wrinkle your nose and wriggle happily, “Baba and Yelena are real. But sin is thing you choose to believe in. It is made up stories to make us feel better about death but it does not matter, малыш. What matters is what we do now, when we are alive, not what we do to secure a place in an afterlife that might not exist, eh? We are kind to each other now while we live because we know it to be true that we’re alive. To tell someone else who to kiss was wrong and unkind of that boy at school. Worry about the afterlife once you get there, да? If you want to kiss girls, kiss girls. No one who is kind or worth your time will care.”

She kissed the top of your head before standing back up and returning to her cleaning. No more words were exchanged on the prospect, but from that day onward it has appeared to be common knowledge in the household that you like girls, and that Melina is not a fan of religion justifying bigotry.

In all honesty, she is not a fan of anything that’s not an irrefutable truth. Science is her preferred method of explanation for any problem that may occur. But as her relationship with Alexi has blossomed, and then in turn the ones she shares with her daughters too, she’s learned that facts and feelings do not have to be mutually exclusive. Some of the complexities of the human mind are far beyond her understanding, or indeed any of us — and yet this is a truth which ought to be embraced, not feared. The greatest joys in Melina’s life are its mysteries.

And so Mama Melina has never questioned the dynamic you and Natasha share; at least to her, it’s seemed crystal clear since day one that the two of you harbour affections for one another — admittedly for reasons beyond her comprehension, but it’s nonetheless undeniable to anyone who knows you like she does. She’s watched you grow all of your lives, delicately inching closer to one another like two flowers craning their necks to reach the sun. Melina long ago accepted she’ll never in this lifetime know what higher power reigns as a puppeteer over her, or understand the complexities of love, but she knows better than to pretend as if some things in this world aren’t inexplicably and cosmically connected. You and Natasha only prove this point. If she looks hard enough, Melina can see the red thread that runs from your body to her daughter’s.

Alexi, by far the romantic, wholeheartedly agrees with her, which only furthers Melina’s convictions (he would know better than her, she reasons) — although admittedly the events of the last few months have blindsided the both of them. Melina appears to be more concerned by it than her husband, though; so much so that one night she actually sits him down to ask if he even knows what’s going on, and why there’s this big gaping gulf between her daughters, tearing her family apart.

Alexi just guffaws, so full of mirth that Melina is startled. “Ah Боже мой, my love. Do not be silly, I would have to be blind to miss those daggers over dinner, no? No, do not worry, I’m understand. But love is not easy, ah? Its course has never run so smooth. Remember when I first asked out you? You were so… skittish, like little kitten, for weeks,” he recalls with shining eyes. “And look where we ended up now, ah? These are silly babies. They’ll make mistakes. They need the time that you did.”

His words soothe her, in the way that they always do. She relaxes into his comforting embrace with the knowledge that even if she’s the intellectual (and financial) breadwinner in this relationship, Alexi always knows what to say in the face of the heart’s unpredictability. Maybe he is right. Maybe everyone just needs some time.

So, despite her doubts, time is what Melina gives.

Two weeks after that conversation, Liho comes home. His fur is patchy where it’s been shorn off and started to grow back again, and one of his legs is still bound tightly, but he’s back and he’s yours. He leaps happily into your arms when he sees you (despite the yelp of alarm Melina makes) and it’s like he never left. Yelena comes the closest to you that she’s been in weeks to pet his head while he’s curled up against your chest, and she even allows a smile to escape. You can’t help but smile back, like the beginning of spring after a long harsh winter, hope blossoming in your chest once again.

In the time that it’s taken him to come home, other things have happened too. Natasha’s nose, displaced by the punch Yelena successfully laid on her, heals quickly. Your relationship does not. Something unspoken festers between the two of you, hardening and shrinking and blackening into a sickening nothingness. You can’t look at her now without the taste of something bitter filling your mouth — and yet that boiling hot liquid rage still fills your chest when you think of her with someone else. How is it possible to love someone so much but hate them at the same time? You wish, more than anything, that none of this happened. You wish she would just let you love her without having to ruin it for the both of you.

It’s such an indescribably lonely feeling that the two of you are like this now, when only a short time ago the two of you bore open hearts to one another — well, you gave yours to Natasha, anyway. The more you think about it the less of her you have ever known. She’s a stranger to you. Quite a few times since prom night she’s tried to speak to you — offering another half-assed apology, no doubt — but you’ve only ever shut her down. What is there left to say? Nothing that you want to hear, for sure.

(And maybe the things that still hang heavy in the air between you are better left unsaid.)

A few days after Liho comes home you’re laid on your bed in the attic, with your baby boy himself curled comfortably on your chest, purring away merrily as you scratch at his head. There’s some soft music on in the background but neither of you are really doing much. You’re just trying to enjoy his company, (and he’s evidently enjoying yours,) now that you know not to take it for granted.

The scare you’ve had with him has shifted your perspective on a lot, actually — it’s been a rude but much-needed wake up call. Yelena, just like Liho, is your family, and you want to make up with her. Who knows how long either of you have left, or what might happen?

Yes, you absolutely want to be her sister again. You’re just not sure where to even start.

The knock that comes at your door is unexpected, though, and only more unexpected when you see who your mystery visitor actually is. Yelena stands in your doorway, eyes fixed on Liho on your chest. He mews happily when he sees her.

“Кот,” she says hoarsely, holding out her arms and making grabby hands. You blink, stunned for a moment at the fact that she is talking at all, let alone talking to you. This would usually be a good sign, one that she’s coming back into herself, but these naturally are unprecedented circumstances, and you can’t really be certain what anything means anymore.

Yelena steps forward, jerking you out of your trance; you shoot to your feet and kiss Liho on the forehead before holding him out to her with your hands beneath his armpits so that his legs dangle underneath him, rendering him comically long and thin. Lena scoops him up and curls him against her chest; he purrs contentedly and her eyes crinkle in quiet gratitude before she leaves, humming her song to herself.

You almost call out to her, but your body freezes. The door closes behind her you scold yourself for not reaching out, for trying to close this rift between you, but maybe you’ve not given her long enough yet.

What Yelena needs is time, you know. Her whole world has been turned upside down and she has to rebuild it piece by piece. But how much time is enough?

Well, as it turns out, you won’t have to wait much longer.

It’s the last week of school, just over five weeks now since your catastrophic prom night, and you’ve just walked out of your last final. Sam Wilson is waiting for you outside the doors with your favourite flavour of popsicle in his hand, and is already busily consuming his own. When he spots you he waves a broad hand merrily, and you make your way over to him.

“I’m sure you aced it, squirt,” he says before you can even open your mouth, and offers you the popsicle. Unfortunately you’re all too familiar to Ohio’s stifling summer air, making every thought or movement damp and groggy. You accept it gratefully.

Your core friendship group, which you’ve been in for years now, has been pretty turbulent since things went down between you and Yelena. Pairing that with finals and early graduations, you can feel a permanent shift occurring, and it’s frightening. Everyone’s still making effort to maintain contact with you, but this change on top of everything else has you feeling like you’re drowning when you think too long about it. It seems like you never know what are the golden days until they’re gone. (You got twelve golden years with Yelena, but is that where it ends? Will she ever tolerate your presence in her life again?)

Someone who you couldn’t be more grateful for throughout all of this is Sam. One day not long after everything happened you came to him crying, and confessed everything. He patted your back with an aura of awkward concern until your sobs subsided, at which point all he had to offer was, “Huh. Well, I guess that explains why prom night went to shit.”

You can’t help but admire the way that he takes everything in his stride. Nothing fazes him. It’s welcome after spending so long around Natasha, who’s constantly on edge, worried someone else might see her with you. Sam is so unbothered, just being in his presence is calming. He’s become a good and valued friend to you.

“That was your last final,” he reminds you, bringing you back to the present moment. “You’re free now for the whole summer.”

“Oh fuck yeah, man,” you say as the realisation dawns on you.

“How’d you want to celebrate?”

You look up at him and a toothy grin takes root on his face as he realises what you’re about to say.

“Arcade,” you say and he nods fervently in agreement. In recent times you’ve become its most loyal patrons; you retreat there often after classes, whether it’s to recuperate from a bad day or celebrate a good one. Today, thankfully, appears to be the latter.

“Arcade,” he repeats happily, and the two of you amble off out of the school gates and down the hill toward the centre of town, where the Boulevard housing the arcade is located. You chat happily for a little while, about your plans for the summer and what you might do together.

“And, uh… any updates on your… anything?” he asks delicately. It’s a vague question but of course you know what he means.

“Not really.” You deflate a little. “I’m not sure Lena wants me around anymore, to be honest.”

“I’m sure she does,” Sam consoles with a startling certainty. “Seriously. What about Natasha?”

You just shake your head. “I don’t want to… I can’t. Not until Lena…”

“Gives you the okay,” he nods understandingly.

“Yeah, I guess. But until she’s sorry, too. She was really mean,” you say quietly.

“Yeah, I get that. It’ll be okay, man.”

You’re not so sure about that, but before you can express this you cross the road and the two of you have reached the arcade, where your troubles are promptly forgotten.

Sam’s words are very quickly proven correct, though — within only a few hours. You arrive home from your arcade trip with some silly winnings tucked under your arm and a smile on your face. It is Friday night, date night for Melina and Alexi, so a car is missing from the driveway and the kitchen is empty as you enter.

Perfect, you think to yourself, and begin to fix yourself some food. These days you’re very careful not to venture into the communal areas of the house unless you’re sure you won’t be treading on anyone else’s toes. You kind of feel like a burden as it is — you’re not a proper part of this family anyway, not in the way that everyone else is — and you don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable in their own home. So you’ve moved bedrooms and now you meticulously strategise what times you’ll make an expedition down to the kitchen. (Sometimes, when you’ve not had a chance to eat yet, you’ll open your bedroom door to a plate of chocolate chip pancakes in front of you. Everyone in the house denies knowledge when asked but you have your suspicions of who’s behind it.)

Sometimes you think about moving back to the place where you were born, but you’re not sure if you could stomach that. That feels like a forever choice. There’s no going back from that.

Liho pads up to you, excited that you’re home and even more excited that you’re making food. Unable to help yourself, you indulge him with some chin scratches and scraps. Life’s too short, you say. Why shouldn’t you make a fuss of your boy?

He winds himself around your legs contentedly while you cook. It is just you and him and school has finished and you have the whole summer to do what you want, and you are cooking, and for the first time in a while you are able to shut off and experience a moment of complete peace.

Naturally, with the trajectory of your life at the minute, this peace does not last long.

“Is Sam Wilson your new best friend?” says a cool voice behind you. You actually yelp in alarm, and very ungracefully fumble with the piping hot utensils you’re using, burning your hand in the process. Liho hisses, and you do too, making a beeline for the sink.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that,” you mutter half-heartedly. Yelena, now moving to stand fully in the light, just makes a noise in the back of her throat as she opens the cupboard above your head and reaches for the first-aid kit. Her face is carefully unbothered.

“I only asked a question,” she says, moving your food off of the heat. Liho claws at your ankles worriedly. You struggle to process Yelena’s words, much less the fact that she is talking to you. Did you blink and miss a chapter?

“Uh,” you rub at the back of your neck with your hand not under running water, “n-no. No, he’s not my new best friend. I don’t,” your voice drops, and you look away, “I don’t think I have one anymore.”

“You do,” she informs you matter-of-factly, hopping up onto the counter beside you and swinging her legs while you continue to bathe your hand. “If you still want one. But she is very mad at you.”

Your voice catches in your throat.

“She does love you,” Lena continues, “but she is wondering why you did things in the way you did.”

There’s a moment of quiet. You gather your thoughts. You weren’t expecting to have this talk tonight.

“I was scared,” you tell her.

“Of what?”

“Of,” you gesture between the two of you, “this. Of making things bad. I always figured it would be like a,” you tilt your head back to keep from crying, because now would be a stupid time to cry, “a stupid schoolgirl crush, you know? She never even spoke to me, I was just her little sister’s dumb best friend, but then things happened and it was so fast and I was so scared. And I wanted to tell you but she… didn’t. She only wanted me when no one else could see. I guess I hoped that she would — come around, eventually, and then I wouldn’t be lying anymore.” You’re heaving with the effort to not cry. “I was wrong.”

“All this time the mystery girl was treating you like shit, you could have told me who it was,” Yelena implores. “I love my sister but she makes me sad also. She can be a dick, absolutely. She’s the worst. Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

“She’s your family,” you choke. “I couldn’t cause a— a rift or a problem like that. And what if you believed her over me? And it kept getting worse, and —”

“Сестра,” she leans over, cupping your damp face between her hands and forcing you to look at her, “I would always believe you. Always. Never before have you given reason to not.”

You nod tearfully, and she lets go. The only noise is the running water for a few moments.

“That is probably long enough under tap,” Lena murmurs, turning it off and taking your injured hand in her lap. Opening the first aid kit, she begins to dress the burn. “I am sorry for making you jump.”

“I am sorry for everything else,” you reply honestly. “I was stupid.”

“Yes,” she agrees bluntly. Then, “Natalia was stupider.” When you look up in open surprise, she rolls her eyes. “Close your mouth, you will catch flies. Of course she was stupid, she has fumbled so hard. You,” she pinches your cheek affectionately, “are a catch. I am not even into all of this, but if I was a dater we would be together and I would treat you like four million times better than she does.”

“You already do,” you say quietly, looking down at your hand in her lap as she continues to bandage it.

“Oh absolutely, I am the best.”

Another, much longer, pause. She finishes wrapping your hand, and pats it three times to notify you that she’s done, the exact same way that Mama Melina does. The action makes your heart swell and eyes fill with unexpected tears.

“Do you know why I was so upset by all of it?” she asks unexpectedly. You blink in surprise. This feels like a trick question.

“Because… I lied?”

“Because you picked Natasha over me,” she tells you.

“No I didn’t— what?”

“Yes, you did,” she says, and she’s a little choked all of a sudden. “All of my life Natasha has been the one who everyone looks at first. She is the special one. You are the only one I had first, who was mine. My близнец. And then I find out that for months you have been lying and picking her over me instead. When she is mean, she is so mean sometimes, yes I love her but she is not much like when we were kids anymore, she is so mean. But everyone likes her more than me. Even you.” She turns away.

“No, no I don’t,” you rush to her side, unable to help it now, scooping her close to you. “No I don’t. I was wrong, and I’m sorry. It was stupid to think she’d ever love me, I shouldn’t have— and I shouldn’t have left you out of it. I think I was trying to protect you? I don’t know. You’re always the one to protect me and punch everyone else, I think I was trying to stop you from getting hurt. And her? But it was dumb. Very dumb.”

“Very, very dumb,” Yelena agrees.

“The dumbest.”

“You have broken world record, кролик.”

You laugh a little tearfully, and while Yelena’s arms are wrapped around you she feels it throughout her body. She revels in the feeling of you holding her and loving her again, after the longest time.

“So we are back from the store?” she asks hopefully after a moment. It takes you a moment to process what she means.

“Oh,” you laugh, “we were never there. You will always be my favourite person, Yelena Belova-Shostakov.”

“Okay.” She exhales in relief. “Good. Just, because — well, you know, we have not spoke in so long and you didn’t think you had a best friend, and—”

“No— what? No,” you frown, “that was me giving you space to process and heal. I wasn’t sure you’d want me back,” you laugh. “I wasn’t ignoring you. I promise.”

“I will always want you back,” she says in a small, content voice. “I will always want you home. With me. Not at store.”

“Not at the store,” you repeat.

And just like that, you have your best friend again.

One familial bond repaired doesn’t mean all of them, though — and Yelena’s relationship with her sister has been patchy recently, to put it mildly. In your eyes it’s a plus that they haven’t outright fistfought in the way that they absolutely would if they were any younger, but Mama Melina doesn’t seem to see things that way.

A few days after you and Yelena make up, the two of you along with your parents are sat around the dinner table. At the very least Melina is able to fuss over her twins again, and Alexi is able to once again boom “here comes trouble” whenever the two of you enter a room together. They both take great pleasure in it, much to Yelena’s entertainment and your endearment. You love your parents.

The conversation halts when the front door slams, though. Natasha appears in the kitchen doorway for a second before processing the scene in front of her and slowly backing away, back out of sight.

“What is this about?” Alexi calls after her through a mouthful of food. “Come eat, love.”

There is no response, only footsteps on the stairs.

“Our daughters hate each other,” Melina sighs heavily. When you and Yelena look up at her, she clarifies, “no, not you two. You and Natasha.” She pinches Lena’s cheek.

“We do not hate each other,” Yelena says placidly, much to everyone’s surprise. “I am just angry at her. We will be fine.”

Natasha, who is still within earshot at the top of the stairs, feels her heart skip a beat at this and thinks to herself that just maybe Yelena is ready to be receptive to her attempts at reconnection. Her only issue is she has no idea how to facilitate it. She’s done all the things she can think of, aside from straight up cornering her younger sister — she leaves offerings of food at her door and texts her when the Kardashians are on the TV — but all of it has been treated with nonchalance that’s left her bewildered as to what her next step should be.

Yelena’s got her covered, though.

It’s her turn to strike, she knows, and again she chooses to do it when her sister will least expect it. Nat traipses home late one night, exhausted from cheer practice that overran. (Their next game is the last of the season, and her last cheer match ever considering she’s graduating this summer, so this semester’s team captain Sharon is determined they go out with a bang — even if that bang is a cheerleader toppling from the pyramid out of sheer exhaustion.) She mumbles her greetings and goodnights to Melina and Alexi, who are huddled around a decanter of whiskey in the study with Liho, and stumbles upstairs. All the lights are off up here, and she figures you and Yelena are probably settling down for the night. With a long, wistful look up the spiral staircase towards your firmly closed door, she trudges into her own (pitch-black) room. When she flicks on the light, though, she shrieks in horror. Sat expectantly at the foot of her bed is a long-limbed and blonde-headed figure, with hands folded neatly in its lap.

“Good evening, сестра,” greets the figure, sometimes known as Yelena Belova, with vaguely ominous nonchalance.

Natasha leans back against the door and closes her eyes in a desperate attempt to revert her heart rate to normal. Her first instinct as an older sister is to yell at her to get the fuck out, but in light of recent events this probably wouldn’t be the wisest of choices. Instead, she clamps her mouth tightly shut as she attempts to regain herself.

“I don’t,” she pants after a moment, “I haven’t— what? Hi. What?”

“You should really get a better lock,” Yelena says amusedly. “Very easy to pick.”

“You don’t have to break in,” Natasha grumbles, letting her bag slide to the floor and flopping backwards onto the bed. “Just knock.”

“No fun.” Yelena pokes Nat’s thigh with her toe just like she would when they were kids and for a moment they’re both young again. But she blinks, and the moment is gone, and now they’re two almost-adults with an entire universe between them.

Natasha just groans and flops back to stare up at her ceiling. A few years back you and Yelena helped her paint it blue and now it looks like the sky. It makes her smile when she’s sad sometimes. Yelena joins her, and the two cloudgaze for a moment.

“Why are you in my room?” Natasha asks quietly.

“To annoy you,” Lena quips.

“Success.”

“And to talk,” she continues.

“Also success. We are talking.”

The blonde lunges for her, and Natasha rolls away playfully. “No, I’m serious. Real talking.”

“Alright, I’m all ears.” Nat puts her hands behind her ears and pushes them forward to emphasise her point — again, like they would when they were kids.

“I want to know what you were intending when you started dating Y/N,” Yelena says, and Nat’s stomach drops. She knew this was coming, she knew this was where the conversation would lead, but she was still hoping to stall it for as long as possible just for the joy that her sister is talking to her again. The excitement is short-lived, though.

“We were never dating,” she reminds her quietly.

“Why not?”

The bluntness of the question makes Natasha stop short.

“Because it just, didn’t work out like that, I guess,” she tries. Yelena remains eerily stony.

“It’s not nice to lie to your baby sister, Natalia.”

Natasha deflates. “Because w— because I’m a fucking idiot. I don’t know what you want me to say. I know I messed up.”

“Step one is awareness,” Yelena nods sagely, while Nat grits her teeth. “So what are you going to do about it?”

She shrugs. “Graduate, and leave town, I guess. You and Y/N are twins again now, and I caused all these problems, so once I leave things should be fixed.”

“Untrue and false,” the blonde interrupts sharply. “That is lie. Y/N/N is crushed. This will not magically be fix if you take off for college.”

“But it will help,” Natasha insists.

“No it won’t,” Yelena pinches the bridge of her nose in frustration, “oh my god, how are you so stupid. She is in love with you, and she is so patient with you, she is not even angry. Which I would be, by the way, but she’s not. She’s only sure you don’t want her.”

“Huh? But I do.”

“No, like wanting her,” Yelena says gently. “As a whole. Like… unity, ah? Влюбленный. She feels so not good enough for you, and every day you are prove her right. You take only what you want from her and leave the rest. That is not what love is. She feels not loved by you, and that you only like her for the things she can offer you.”

“Oh. But I didn’t mean to,” Natasha says tearfully. Suddenly she is very small, and she draws her knees up to her chest. “I was only… Lena, маленький, I didn’t know what to do.”

“The answer seems pretty simple,” the blonde observes astutely, “all you had to do was either tell her you love her and want to be with her, or tell her it is over. You can’t keep having things in your way forever. She has feelings too, and the relationship cannot be on just your terms. She is not a doll, or toy.”

“I do,” she says hoarsely. “I do, t- the first one. It’s- I do. But I’m so…” She raises a pale trembling palm to run a hand through her hair, inhaling shakily, and with a blink of surprise Yelena realised how scared her older sister truly is.

“What is so terrifying?” she asks tenderly.

“Y/N is a girl.”

Yelena almost laughs at the confession but is able to refrain, and is proud of her capability to do so upon seeing just how agitated her company is over the subject. “Is this all that holds you back? Nobody would care. Ma and Daddy wouldn’t. This is not end of the world.”

“No, you don’t get it,” says Natasha fiercely. “Ever since I came to America... you were here first, you and Y/N, and you just get to be you. You have who you are. But I don’t know who I am, so I have to — do all the American girl things. I have to fit in. I don’t have a Y/N. And American girls don’t kiss girls.”

Yelena stops to consider this. It’s true that Natasha has always put far, far more effort into fitting in and Westernising herself more than she or their parents ever did. Yelena is perfectly content with her slightly broken English and her raspy accent and her life of in-betweenness. She’s okay with being from two places. To her, when she looks in the mirror, that is Yelena Belova. They’re just parts of who she is. She’s never even stopped to consider those as potential insecurities — not when she had other things and feelings (or lack thereof) to worry about. How could something so unchangeable be a source of doubt? And yet here she now sits, struggling to wrap her head around this invisible binary which has suffocated her sister for so many years.

“But you are not… what?” she says confusedly. “You did have a Y/N. All of this… you’re being someone else. I knew something felt strange. I do not understand why? I like who you are before. It wasn’t bad. I like Natalia.”

This seems to break Nat, who buries her face in her hands. Yelena lets out a motherly cluck of sympathy and scoots closer to loop a gangly arm around her sister.

“I just want to be normal,” breathes Natasha.

“But it is not worth all this,” Yelena says, squeezing her sister tightly to her chest. “What does normal even mean? Being cool is not the most important, Natalia. Everybody liking you doesn’t… fix you not liking yourself.” She cringes at her own words, reminding herself a little too much of Darcy’s Pinterest feed, but the words seem to ring true with Nat, at least.

“I am just so scared,” Nat says in a small voice. “And I think I’ve made this so bad it can’t be fixed.”

Yelena pulls away to look her sternly in the eyes. “Things can always be fixed. Maybe not in ideal way you want them to be, but we can always make amends. But you have to be sorry.”

“I am,” Natasha cries, “I am sorry.”

Yelena holds her. “I know.”

She’s not so sure you know it, though.

Maybe somewhere deep down, you do. You see it in the saddened smiles Nat offers you whenever she steps out of your way or leaves a room so you can use it. You see it in the way she brings your favourite snacks home and leaves them in the pantry without word or question, like she doesn’t even expect you to notice. You see it even in the absence of her; in the way that she gives you space, quietly leaving rooms when you enter them so you can use them despite the fact that you can feel in the air how much she wants to stop and talk to you. Sure, you can tell that she’s sorry. But you’re not sure that she knows what she’s sorry for.

You’re not sure she knows how badly she’s really hurt you, with her every move stabbing into you repeatedly over a course of months. Now that the knife is turned on her and she’s the one in exile, a selfish part of you wants to leave her there, just so she knows what it’s like. You guess that’s kind of what you’re doing now. You know this can’t go on forever though. In a couple of months Natasha leaves for out-of-state college, which she announced over dinner a few nights ago. You had to excuse yourself from the table to process that information. Your time is limited, you know, and it’s clear what Natasha wants (to kiss and make up) — but what do you want? To leave this wound untreated, festering for the next eternity? Or to allow yourself peace and let this go?

“Why do I have to be the bigger person?” you half-heartedly complain to Yelena one night as the two of you wash the dishes. “It’s not fair.”

“Because you are the bigger person,” Yelena laughs. “Natalia has given you the control. The next move is on you. That’s just the way it is, if it’s fair or no.” She whips you playfully with her tea towel, and the conversation moves on without further incident.

The issue plays on your mind long after the words are spoken, though. Whether you like it or not, Yelena is right. The next move’s on you. But how are you meant to make that call? What is the right move to make?

Well, one of Natasha’s friends appears very opinionated on the subject.

On a particularly warm afternoon, you and Yelena stroll into town, and stop off at May Parker’s ice cream parlour — the best in town.

“Ah,” Yelena grimaces, as you draw close to its glass windows, “it is so busy in there. I go in, you wait out here?”

You smile at her gratefully, and she disappears inside.

“Y/L/N!” a voice calls out behind you, and you turn around to see Bucky Barnes making a beeline for you. He’s about twice your size in every way imaginable, and you gulp.

“Hi?” you say uncertainly. You don’t think you’ve ever spoken to him in your life.

“What’s up with you and Romanov?” Well, he’s straight to the point.

You flounder, mouth opening and shutting, and he’s gracious enough to continue, “look, I know you and her are a thing. Were. I don’t know, she’s being so weird about it. It’s okay, it’s okay, I was her beard. And she was mine,” he adds, gesturing over at Steve Rogers, who’s stood on the other side of the road waiting patiently for his boyfriend. He smiles and waves amiably on cue.

You blink. “And no one thought to inform me?”

He shrugs. “Not my place. I think it is my place, though, to ask what’s got her so torn up. You and her fallen out? I’ve never seen her like this. I’on know what to do.”

He may not mean it menacingly, but he’s towering over you and you’re finding it hard to breathe. “She was an asshole, dude,” you say, perhaps a little more defensively than you envisioned. “She wasn’t nice to me and we weren’t even together, because she didn’t see me like that. So yeah, I guess we fell out.”

He frowns, deeply, and takes a moment to process this. “Oh. That… but she does feel that way about you.”

“It’d be nice if she’d show it,” you say bitterly.

His face softens. “Maybe… Look, even if the two of you don’t work it out proper, wouldn’t it be easier to at least clear the air? She likes you so much. She just wants you in her life, I think.”

You look at him uncertainly for a moment, but he holds your gaze earnestly. You know him and Natasha are relatively close, and you don’t see why he’d lie about something like this. It’s definitely tempting to believe.

“Okay,” you say, “I’ll bear that in mind.”

He looks like he’s about to say something else, but you feel a hand on your shoulder and instantly recognise Yelena’s presence just behind you. “What is going on?”

“Just talking,” says Bucky smoothly, but it seems apparent that the moment is over. “See you around, kid.” He crosses the road back to Steve.

“Kid,” you mutter, “he’s one grade older than me.”

“What did he want?” Yelena asks you, and you relay your strange interaction to her. “Oh. Well, he is probably right, but I’m not sure how much it means coming from Natasha’s ex.”

“Were they really together?” you ask, your stomach turning at the thought. Wouldn’t that co-occur with your and her relationship? “He said he was her beard.”

She shrugs. “Not my expertise. Come on, the ice cream will melt.”

You don’t see Bucky Barnes again for the weeks that follow, although you can’t help but wonder what he meant, and what he was trying to achieve. (And a little part inside of you thinks that maybe he could be right.)

“Ma?” says Natasha suddenly. “How did you know you loved Alexi?”

It’s late at night, and the two of them are on the car ride home from Nat’s last cheer game of the season. (At her request it was not a family affair, despite Alexi’s insistence that it was his right to make a fuss of his talented daughter’s performance at her last high school cheer game.) The roads are empty and the towns are sleepy, but Natasha’s question has Melina wide awake.

“Eeh… it was not like a revelation. I did not wake up one day with new clarity. It came to me over time. It took me long time to accept, though. Your father is very patient man.”

“But was there anything specific?” Natasha persists.

Melina purses her lips in thought. “Well, when I met him I was not trusting person. One time when we were in the kind of in between bit right before being proper couple, ah —”

“The talking stage,” Nat supplies helpfully.

“— yes, да. We were in that, nothing proper but something, and he went to touch me and I had a… panic? I shut down. Achh, моя любовь, I was still figuring out who I was and what I did and didn’t like and… still growing up and healing from when I was kid. I was scared.”

Natasha nods solemnly. There are some childhood experiences which, despite unspoken, bind she and her mother at the soul.

“So I freak out, and I expected him to… belittle or leave, or something. But he stays and he is so patient, he apologise for making me jump and fetch me tea, and I thought like wow, he is so gentle. And he is not like the other men I known.”

Again, Natasha nods. Gentle is the perfect descriptor for her father. He’s the most wonderful man she’s ever met.

“So we spent more time together, he was patient with me and always caring. That was the time that I knew I would fall in love with him. But I’m not really know when it happened. Maybe by then it already had, ah? I have only ever had eyes for him. He make me feel… valued, and worthy.”

Natasha just hums in response, for she’s suddenly and embarrassingly on the verge of violent sobbing. She blames Ma and Baba and their beautiful relationship. Nothing else.

“Is this about Y/N?” Melina asks quietly. Natasha opens her mouth to reply and there it is, just as she feared, the waterworks are unleashed. Ma sighs heavily and pulls over.

“Идите сюда,” she says, holding her arms out, and Natasha crawls into them. She rocks her daughter back and forth, exactly how she used to so many years ago when the girl was half this size, while Nat’s face is buried in her mother’s neck. They stay like that for a while, until Natasha’s tears begin to die down.

“Do you want to go and get milkshakes?” Melina breaks the silence. Natasha hums her assent.

The 24-hour diner isn’t far from where they’ve pulled over, and it’s almost empty at this time of night. With no words exchanged Melina orders Natasha’s usual, or what was her usual when she was a kid — a strawberry milkshake and fries. A young Natasha decided strawberry was her favourite as soon as she found out that pink was a girl’s colour. Thinking about that now, especially with the hindsight of her conversation with Yelena, has her stomach turning a little. How long has she been letting her view of the world colour every single choice that she makes? Which parts of her are really her, and which are the ones she’s willed into existence?

It’s a scary line of questioning, and Natasha can feel herself beginning to spiral. No more, she tells herself. Yelena was probably right about needing to get to know herself — and learning her real favourite flavour of milkshake seems a manageable starting point.

“Can I have the caramel one?” she asks Melina gruffly, pointing at the menu. Her mama just nods and alters their order accordingly.

They sit at their usual booth and eat in a comfortable silence, punctuated only by the occasional “pass the ketchup”s. Once they’ve finished, though, and Melina can sense her daughter has calmed enough to leave, she turns and says to her, “Love isn’t easy thing to admit. But it’s… not something to be ashamed of. When it comes, just let it happen. It’s scary, but it does not make you weaker, ah? It will do you no good to push it away.” She hesitates, but then seems satisfied with what she’s said. She turns on her heel and heads back out to the car. Natasha, dumbfounded, follows her.

When they finally make it home, Alexi is snoring away upstairs and you’re on the sofa with Yelena sprawled on top of you, fast asleep. You’re wide awake, though, and look up as the two of them come in.

“Night, ma,” Natasha murmurs to her mother, kissing her cheek before tiptoeing off to bed. Melina hums at the action and pads into the living room toward her twins.

“Hi ma,” you chirp, voice a little husky. “Everything okay?”

Your mama nods, and holds out a brown paper bag. “We stopped at diner. Got your favourite. Some for Lena too.”

Your eyes crinkle up into half-moons as you smile at her in gratitude, and Melina smiles back fondly, her chest filling with warmth. “Thank you.”

She kisses Yelena’s forehead, who does not stir, and then yours, lingering for a moment.

“I love you,” she tells you sincerely, and a fierceness glimmers in her gaze that you’re not quite sure what to do with. “We all do.”

“I love you too,” you tell her honestly. You only hope you’re matching her intensity. She holds your gaze for a moment longer as if searching for something within it, then nods, seemingly satisfied, and retreats upstairs to join Alexi, leaving you alone with a meal to demolish, a slumbering blonde pinning you to the sofa and many, many thoughts.

A few days after that conversation, you wander into the backyard (Melina’s carefully pruned pride and joy) to pet Liho, who’s basking peacefully in the summer evening sun.

“Careful of the flowerbed,” you warn as he flexes his claws and kicks his legs happily. “Someone will suffer if Ma’s roses are ruined.”

He huffs in what could be agreement, and you toe absently at the sandy dirt you and Yelena used to play in.

A gentle creaking sounds from somewhere nearby. It’s a noise that makes you feel ten years younger, and curiously, you rise to your feet.

At the far end of the backyard, nestled among the pines and pratia, is the swing set Alexi built a little while after Yelena first moved in. It’s a little haggard-looking, as when Natasha came to America Alexi bodged a third swing so all of you could play together, but to his credit it’s still held up all these years. Sure, it doesn’t get so much use anymore, but sometimes when one of you is feeling a little down you’ll revisit the simpler times of your childhood.

This seems to be what you’ve stumbled upon Natasha doing now. She’s sat on the middle swing (which in times gone by was your swing, as the middle spot often was when you were a kid, so both siblings got to be next to you), rocking back and forth gently as she cradles something small in her hands, turning it over. She’s lost in thought. Wondering if you’ve intruded on something private, you begin to slowly pace away. When you catch sight of what it is in her hands, though, your stomach turns; a small and glistening pink rock, rubbed smooth by years of love.

“You kept that?” you ask quietly. Natasha’s head shoots up and she takes note of your appearance in the same way that a deer takes note of rapidly approaching headlights. Her mouth opens as she fumbles for words, but she just settles for nodding vigorously before lowering her gaze to her lap again.

You don’t really know what to think, or do. You hesitate for a moment, and find yourself thinking of Bucky’s advice — wouldn’t it be easier to clear the air? This tension is suffocating. With this on your mind, you seem to surprise Natasha as much as yourself when your feet march you over to the swing on your left, and your knees bend to seat you. Her entire body tenses as yours nears her. You can tell that, since you’ve gone to great lengths to escape her company recently, this is the last thing she expected. (In all honesty you weren’t really expecting this either. What now?)

“You know that I’m in love with you, right?” Natasha says suddenly, and you freeze. Your chest tightens, and it’s like she’s wrapped herself around it, claiming your breath as her own.

“That’s not funny,” you reply in a small voice. “Don’t— don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Play with me like that.”

Her stomach lurches. “I’m being serious.”

You’re quiet for a moment. “Were you and Bucky ever actually together?”

“What?”

“Bucky Barnes. Were you with him when you were with me, too?”

“N- no,” she says with vehement certainty. “I was — well, I guess it doesn’t really matter now, but when him and Steve were a secret I was his cover story. And I guess he was mine, so that I could… yeah.” She gestures towards you, pressing her lips together.

“But even after they came out I was still a secret.”

“I—” Natasha says, and buries her face in her hands for a moment, because this is not how she hoped this would go. “Yes. And that was wrong of me. I’m sorry. I think I was trying to protect you, and me, and you from me because I know how messy I can be, and I wanted you so bad but I didn’t want to drag you down with me. And I still did anyway.” She sighs heavily.

“That’s an interesting way of showing affection,” you quip.

“I know,” she says quietly. “And I’m sorry. I know I haven’t shown it well — at all — and I don’t really blame you for not believing me. Or, uh, hating me.”

“I don’t hate you,” you say softly.

Her shoulders sag. “Oh. W— well that’s good, then.”

“But I wish I did,” you add.

“No, yeah. That’s fair.”

“You’re really mean.”

Natasha just nods.

“And it’s even worse because I can’t even hate you because you can also be really nice.”

She nods again uncertainly. She’s not really sure how to respond to that.

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why are you so mean sometimes?”

This makes her stop up short. The way that both you and Yelena never fail to cut to the chase or ask the questions that nobody else would will always catch her off guard. “It’s kind of just who I am,” she begins, but at the way your face scrunches she adds, “or who I’ve decided to be, anyway. I don’t really know. I’m not sure… who I am.” Even uttering the statement aloud is a weight lifted from her shoulders. “It’s scary. I guess I… I thought that, like, I have to be the mean one, or someone else will first. To me. You know?”

“Why would anyone be mean to you?”

“Because I like girls,” she says truthfully, and there’s a tremor to her voice.. “And I’m not from here.”

You stare at her. “…? I like girls, and Yelena isn’t from here. No one is mean to us for it.”

“Because Yelena can and will beat the shit out of anyone that tries something,” Nat snorts. “But I just… I don’t know. It’s different for me.” You nod encouragingly and she adds with reluctance, “I don’t— belong here, not really. Or anywhere. I’m too American to be Russian and too Russian to be American. Ma and Baba and Yelena have it figured out, they’re just both and themselves and they don’t even have to think about it. But that’s not so easy for me.”

“Maybe,” you say carefully, “it’s to do with the people you choose to surround yourselves with. Is it possible that you’re… spending time with the wrong people? If you’re made to feel as though these things make you lesser.”

She shrugs. “Probably. But that doesn’t change the fact that I just… I really don’t have a lot going for me. So I kinda pretend that I do, and then it gets out of hand and I’ve convinced myself that I’m a lot more interesting than I am, to the point that I don’t know who me is. And I get all freaked out. And I’m so scared I kind of just shut off and try not to think, so I guess I’m just an asshole instead. Like it’s a reflex, you know? But it’s not really me. Nothing is me. My entire life is one perpetual identity crisis.” She drops her gaze to toe at the ground.

Your swing comes to a still as you clasp one of her hands between both of yours. They’re warm and perfectly manicured, and her eyes light up at the contact. “You don’t have to know who you are. You just have to exist, and you find out. I’m learning things about myself all the time, and so is Lena. This was my first relationship —” Nat’s stomach drops at the use of the word was “— and I’ve learnt a lot about myself and how I like to be treated. And Lena only came to terms with being aroace this year. Even Ma only just decided she’s demi,” you point out, and Nat can’t help but smile at this. (A little while ago, after Yelena first came out, you and Melina began joining her in attending weekly meetings at the local youth centre for young queer people and their parents. Your mama was determined to be a more educated advocate for her three queer daughters. Very recently, with all this new terminology at her disposal, she dropped into a dinnertime conversation in the presence of the whole family that she thinks she’s demi. “Not that it matters,” she added, “the only one for me is your father,” and she kissed his beaming crinkly cheek with a motherly tenderness. It was a beautiful moment to witness, despite Yelena’s playful booing.)

“I guess,” she says quietly. “Um, I’ve been talking to someone. Professional,” she adds at the look on your face. “Yelena said some stuff that made me realise I probably shouldn’t sort through this alone.”

“Yes, you shouldn’t,” you nod. Natasha raises an eyebrow at your ready agreement. “It’s not something to be ashamed of. Lena sees someone. I do too.”

She blinks. “Really?”

“Yes,” you laugh, “Baba takes me every other Thursday. I have horrible abandonment issues. I guess after everything that’s happened, I’ve kinda internalised some stuff.”

“I definitely took advantage of that,” Nat says guiltily. “I’m sorry. Honestly, I am.”

You look at her. “I know.” Your hand squeezes hers before letting go and she instantly aches to feel it again. “I’m sorry, too. For not… I don’t know, setting more boundaries. Or being more forceful.”

“No, no, it wasn’t your fault.”

You hum, and the two of you sit in silence for a long while as the sun begins to retire.

“You know,” you say suddenly, “you don’t have to move across the country. You can if you want, obviously, it’s your call, but if it’s just because of me… you don’t have to.”

“But-? I’m trying to give you space? To heal,” she says confusedly, and you laugh.

“And it’s very sweet, but I don’t need that much space. I’ve already forgiven you.”

Natasha’s soul leaves her body. “You— huh?”

“I have,” you laugh kindly. “I did some of my own thinking, and I just… I don’t know. I don’t think you need me being mad at you, on top of everything else going on in here.” You tap at her temple gently to emphasise your point, and she shivers. “And I don’t think I need that either. I don’t want to carry that with me.”

“Okay,” Natasha breathes. “T— thank you.”

You wrinkle your nose at her affectionately. “You’re silly.”

She’s awash with the overwhelming need to kiss you, and instead twitches a little, digging her nails into her palm. You take in the movement with such wide-eyed concern that she has to close her eyes for a moment, because she’s almost ill with how much she feels for you. This feeling only grows more intense as you continue.

“I know we’re… whatever we are, but… if there’s anything I can do for you, let me know,” you say more quietly. “I know you’ve been through some stuff, and even when you’re seeing someone for it it can get overwhelming. I do care about you.”

She nods, and swallows thickly. “ I don’t— I— uhm. What does this make us?”

You can hear her hopes heavy on her tongue, and your heart is like lead. “Friends?” you offer. “I— I don’t think we should be anything else, right now.”

Natasha nods, and swallows thickly. With it she swallows back the words but I love you. It must be written across her face, though, because you cup it between your hands (which really isn’t helping her self-restraint at all).

“I love you,” you tell her honestly. “And I always have. But love isn’t… you don’t… I don’t know. That kind of love is something that you earn, I think. And we both need to take care of ourselves.”

“I understand.” Natasha’s voice is hoarse, and barely above a whisper. “And I want you to feel like I respect your decision. But I also want you to feel like I’m serious. About you. And I will prove it if I have to.”

Against your own better judgement, you smile at her.

One thing about Natasha Romanoff is that she’s not a quitter.

Some would say it’s an endearing quality. More would probably tell her it’s the reason she finds herself in so many messes in the first place. What’s objectively certain is that she’s a stubborn little shit — and and with this determination she’s decided she’s going to win you back. Your slight encouragement, no matter how vague, is enough fuel for a fire that could simmer for months.

It starts as chocolates, and flowers. At this point she seems to have cottoned onto the fact that you’re not one for big, theatrical confessions of love, but rather consistent affirmations of it. Actions, not words, she’s heard you say (although now more than ever before she’s seeing for herself what you mean). So there’s no four-act sonnet recitals when you receive her gifts — although you don’t really receive them at all, in the traditional sense. Rather they seem to begin popping up everywhere you go. At one point you open your locker to a bouquet so over-endowed that flowers begin to tumble out onto the floor. Sam steps neatly to the side and watches with glee as you scramble to clean the mess. (He’s most definitely enjoying watching all of this play out.)

Your favourite of all these surprise gifts is probably one delivered by your own four-legged Cupid himself. Liho headbutts the door to your room open and stalks in with a scowl on his face and something attached to his collar. As soon as you remove it to inspect it he rolls onto his back and looks up at you expectantly, clearly expecting compensation for this favour.

“Yes, you’re a very handsome boy,” you tell him distractedly, using one hand to rub his belly while you attempt to unfurl the note he’s delivered with the other. Yelena lets out a noise of amusement. She’s perched on your bed with the Kardashians paused on her laptop in favour of watching this play out instead.

“You are so ungraceful,” she comments mildly, making no move to help you.

“I love how you always see the best in me,” you reply through gritted teeth.

After a moment, you manage to succeed in your task. I picked these for you :), the letter reads. You glance over at Liho’s collar again to see a tiny bunch of forget-me-nots, only slightly battered from their journey and bound neatly by brown twine.

“Another gift from the mystery girl?” Yelena teases, and you groan.

“Okay, saying mystery girl is officially banned. It’s giving me war flashbacks.”

“And that is fair,” your sister muses, getting to her feet to inspect your latest delivery. After she’s done she sits back on her heels. “You don’t have to keep turning her down, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, if it’s just because of me. You have my… blessing, or whatever. But on the condition that you’re not gross about it.” She rolls her eyes, and nudges your cheek with her nose. You squirm good-naturedly.

“Why thank you, your Grace.”

“Yes, I’m the graceful one,” she preens.

“Sure,” you snort, and she smirks. “Um, thank you, though. That’s good to know. I guess I’m still… figuring it out, but she’s growing on me again.” And it’s true. You have your reservations now, but she’s trying to remind you why you first fell for her (and yeah, she might be succeeding). Part of you wonders if she’s turning on the superficiality again, but after she spilled her guts to you on the swing set you’re trying to have faith that she really is turning a new leaf, and charming you authentically.

Yelena considers this. “Yes, okay. This makes sense. Remember to tell me if she tries anything again though. I will put them up.” She raises her fists and you giggle, but you know she’s at least partially serious. She’s very athletic in her own right and people at school go out of their way to avoid crossing her. That’s how you’ve stayed out of trouble your whole life — by standing behind Yelena and letting her handle it instead. Where you hesitate, she dives right in. You adore that about her, though.

“Do you know what you’ll do once she’s out of state?” Lena asks, and you shrug.

“Figure it out as we go, I guess. I don’t know if she’ll lose interest in me.”

The blonde looks up fiercely. “If she does that I will stick them up.”

You beam at her, admittedly less for the violence and more for the sentiment behind it. She beams back for reasons more ambiguous.

“Do you know what we will do?” Yelena queries. Upon your frown she elaborates, “next year when it is our turn to pick college. You and me, what will we do?”

“Pick the same one, and both get in because we’re super smart, and we’ll be roommates. And you can make us mac and cheese every night,” you say, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

She contemplates this.

“Okay,” she says, seemingly satisfied with your answer. “Can we hit play now? I want to know what’s happen to Kim’s diamond earring.”

“Two cookies say she gets it back.”

“Two cookies say eat my ass the way a fish ate her earring,” she retorts, and the two of you settle on the bed again. (You have two more cookies than usual after dinner.)

Despite the witticism you take Yelena’s blessing with pride, and it means a lot more to you than you let on. Now that every single member of your family has shown their support for your relationship you can’t help but feel a slight ray of hope, the likes of which you thought had been stomped out long ago. Never before have you dared to imagine a situation where you could actually have a shot with the girl of your dreams, who you’ve wanted for as long as you can remember — and yet here you are, with her putting her back out working overtime to win you over, and your family watching with interest. Every morning you wake up a little warmer to the idea of letting this happen.

That doesn’t mean Natasha’s out of the woods yet, though, and you’re careful to make this clear to her. She senses your hesitance, and completely understands its presence. She’ll wait for you as long as it takes. (She’s genuinely stunned at how forgiving you have been of her, in all honesty.) In fact she takes your reluctances in her stride in a way that actually has you feeling more for her — but again, you know better than to repeat your mistakes of the past, and so you take this as slowly as you can considering she’s coming on strong and you live under the same roof.

Three months of summer lie ahead of you, stretching out like an endless expanse of sunset-tinted possibility. You and Yelena manage to land jobs at the video store in town — Yelena goes blazing into the interview and makes it clear as she can that the two of you are a package deal. Wong, the guy who runs the place, just seems grateful for the help.

The store becomes somewhat of a hangout spot for the two of you, who work the same hours and are joined at the hip like always, and it’s a safe bet to stop by if anyone wants to find you. Sam often swings by to playfully irritate the both of you, since the marina where his parents’ boat is docked is just round the corner, and Natasha will meet you when you’re closing to take you out for dinner after. (Sometimes Yelena tags along to these meals, and gleefully revels in the awkwardness her presence causes.) Since you and Yelena are twins again too, things are looking up for your friendship group and they’ve taken to visiting also. You’re delighted to spend time with them again. (Seeing Makkari’s face light up when she steps into the Deaf & Subtitled section of the store makes your whole week.)

In fact, word seems to have gotten out about the fact that Wong’s employed you, because one sleepy Tuesday afternoon Bucky Barnes drops by to rent a DVD. He picks one at random, not even glancing at the cover, and as you scan it through for him he says to you lowly, “thank you for making Natasha happy again. She cares so much about you.” He offers you a genuine smile before heading out abruptly and almost forgetting his DVD in the process. (You suspect his purchase was a mere means to talk to you.) It’s a strange interaction, but decidedly more pleasant than your last with him, so you take it no further.

Another perk of having this job is that you have your own money now. You’re not really sure what to do with it at first; the only thing that occurs to you is that you want to get a gift for Natasha. At the end of the summer is her graduation — she’ll walk and wear the square hat and everything, and you’re very excited to embarrass her with photos of the event — and after that she’ll leave for college. Her graduation is the perfect time to present her with said gift, you decide.

You know you want the gift to be meaningful, but you’re not really sure of the specifics. Luckily for you, one night on the roof with Natasha is all you need for the inspiration to strike.

Can’t sleep, you text her one night, after hours of fruitless tossing and turning.

She replies immediately.

Me neither

Come down to my room :)

If you want to!!! she adds after a moment, and you can’t help but smile to yourself. She is adorable.

Omw, you tell her, rolling out of bed.

The door is unlocked!!!!!! just come in

You follow her instructions and slip inside. The room is cosily lit, with her fairy lights on and her little lamp shaped like Calcifer flickering merrily; the bed is unmade, as if someone’s been in it recently, but Natasha herself is nowhere to be seen.

“Nat?” you call out uncertainly, and squeak in surprise when her head pops through the window. She smiles softly at your reaction.

“I’m out here,” she tells you. “C’mon, there’s space for both of us.” She wriggles along her perch on the flat row of tiles of the roof, and pats the empty spot beside her. Antics like this don’t faze you after twelve years of friendship with Yelena. You clamber out beside her readily.

“Hi,” says Natasha a little bashfully, once you’re settled. You lean up to peck her lips and she flushes. “Y— yeah. Um, hi.”

“Hi,” you reply sweetly. “It’s nice out here.”

“It is,” she agrees, her gaze not straying from you. You take no notice, though; your sights are set to the heavens. No matter how much you snipe about how annoying it is to live in a small town, the views still take your breath away. The stars shimmer bright above you, as they do almost every night. They’re not the only beautiful sight your town has to offer; Wanda adores the rocky hills at the edge of town, where many scavengers like squirrels and raccoons have made their home (one boy in your grade, Peter Quill, has befriended one of the raccoons and affectionately named him ‘Rocket’. He visits Rocket every day after lunch with his leftovers from the cafeteria). Occasionally she’s able to convince everyone in your group to accompany her hiking there. Despite your grumbling, it does make for an enjoyable day out.

“I come out here when I can’t sleep,” she tells you quietly.

“I sit on the roof sometimes,” you reply, and you beam at each other. It’s true — you do, but sharing the information feels vulnerable. You’ve figured out how to hoist yourself up through the skylight in the loft and onto the utmost point of the house, but it’s an activity you’ve kept as your own for now. While you adore more than anything being twins with Yelena, and living your life with her, you’re also learning how to exist by yourself for the first time in your life, and enjoying having your own space. Your little corner in the attic has afforded you many freedoms, and not just material ones.

“You see the moon?” Nat asks. The planet in question hangs round and heavy over the horizon, not quite full.

“How could I miss her?” She’s the most beautiful thing in sight.

“You know the difference between waxing and waning?” Natasha prompts, and you shake your head, solely because you love when she talks about her passions. “Waxing is when the moon transitions from a new moon to a full moon — so she fills out. See, that’s what she’s doing now.”

“She’s nearly full,” you remark quietly.

“Yup.” She grins. “Now when she’s waxing, she fills in from the right side — so she kinda looks like a C.” She makes a C shape with her left hand and holds it up against the sky to confirm that, yes, while the moon is waxing it vaguely resembles the letter. “But soon she’ll start to wane — maybe next week? After the full moon. Waning is the transition from the full moon back to the new moon, so she shrinks away into nothing. She’s eaten away from the left side, so she looks like a reverse C.” Nat makes a C shape with her right hand this time, so that it’s reversed, and holds it up to compare to the moon. They don’t match up right now, but they’ll get there someday.

“This is my favourite period though,” she confesses, her voice dropping a little lower, “of the lunar cycle. When the moon is waxing.”

“Why?”

“Because it feels,” she hesitates. “I don’t know. It feels like gross to say out loud but it kinda just feels like, encouraging. Things are always changing. They won’t be like this forever, you know? The cycle keeps on repeating itself.”

“The cycle keeps on repeating itself,” you repeat, and she smiles at you.

“Yeah. You don’t think it’s… dumb? I don’t know, I’ve never brought anyone else up here. I —”

“I don’t think that at all,” you tell her, and she kisses you gently.

The next day you go out and buy a crescent moon necklace.

Natasha has been coming into your room more and more often lately, and you don’t trust yourself to not leave it lying around in plain sight, so one day while she’s out you enlist Alexi’s help to loosen one of the floorboards in the attic so you can stash things under it inconspicuously.

“It’s not for anything suspicious,” you tell him quickly, “you can look under it whenever you want. It’s just to hide gifts and —”

“Relax, sunflower,” he chuckles, “you are entitled to your secrets.”

The necklace stays hidden there until summer draws to a close.

The weeks fly by in a golden haze and before you know it, you’re getting ready for Natasha’s graduation.

Alexi is stood on the landing in his smartest suit, and flexing proudly in the mirror on the wall. “It still fits!” he booms triumphantly.

“Don’t forget to wear your nice shirt, любовь,” Melina calls up the stairs to him. “No one with holes in.” He deflates a little, and retreats back into their bedroom to change.

“He looks fine,” Yelena scolds half-heartedly as she lumbers down the stairs, holding out her wrists to Melina. “Can you do my cufflinks?”

“Where’s your please?” Melina retorts, but she sets her clutch down so she can use both hands to help her daughter.

“We have to leave in ten minutes,” Natasha announces as she bursts from her own room. “Семья, I know what you are like, and we cannot be late.”

“Relax, love.” Alexi reemerges from the bedroom in a different shirt this time. “I will go and start the car,” he starts down the stairs, “and— oh.” He pauses as several buttons pop off his shirt simultaneously. “Ебать.” He turns around and subduedly makes his way back up the stairs.

“Baba,” Natasha groans. “This is what I mean.”

“Hey! I am nearly ready,” says Yelena indignantly, nodding at her mother in thanks for doing her cufflinks before ducking in front of the mirror. “Oh shit, where is my tie?”

“Language,” reprimands Melina.

“See?” Natasha sighs exasperatedly. “Y/N/N is the only one who’s ready.” She hurries down the stairs to where you’re stood in the hall, watching the scene unfold serenely. You’ve been ready to leave for the last ten minutes. She beams at you and pecks you on the cheek just shy of your lips. You flush, and the crescent moon necklace burns a hole in your pocket. Now isn’t the time, though.

Eventually, you all make it into the car, with everyone now sporting correctly-fitting outfits. As always on car journeys, you’re in the back, sandwiched in the middle between Natasha and Yelena. Lena scrolls through her phone disinterestedly, headphones in, while Natasha vibrates on your other side with anticipation and nerves. You take one of her hands between both of yours and she stills instantly.

“I am very proud of you,” you say quietly, “to have made it this far, with these grades. You’ve gotten into your dream college. You can do anything. Today will go fine.”

She doesn’t speak for fear of bawling and potentially ruining her eyeliner, so instead she rests her head on your shoulder in silent gratitude. She doesn’t move until you arrive, at which point she shows you all to your seats (front row, you note) and disappears to the backstage meeting point for all of the graduates.

The actual ceremony doesn’t begin for a while, so Melina converses with the other parents seated around her while Alexi nods politely, and you and Yelena compete in a thumb war. Eventually Principal Rambeau steps onto the stage and a silence settles on the gathered audience.

“Thank you all for attending,” she begins. “We’re here to celebrate our wonderful seniors, who have put in so much work to make it here today, and walk this stage.” She continues like that for a short while before they begin to call the students’ names, and they each walk across the stage in turn to claim their diploma. Natasha is a little later on the register, so you just sit back and enjoy the show — you’ve lived in this small town all your life, where most people know of each other, and so you recognise or even know the vast majority of the people who make their way across the stage. Some of them choose to make a memorable exit from their high school career (like Happy Hogan who chooses to breakdance his way across the stage, or Ned Leeds who walks proudly in a hot dog suit), whereas others take the more graceful route (see Valkyrie King, a prominent athlete of the school, who walks with confidence and regally basks in everyone’s recognition of her). When Natasha Romanova-Shostakov is called, she walks the stage a little bashfully, and with a blush accepts the cheers showered upon her after several years of being the cheer team’s star. You clap and shout louder than anyone else, and to Yelena’s glee capture several shots of her in her square graduate cap. Front row seat privilege.

After the presentations, the students flood into the crowd and people break off into little groups. The air hums with the joy of people laughing and congratulating and embracing one another. Natasha makes her way over to you and Yelena, who are stood now with your parents beside the refreshments. She brightens when she spots you, and is instantly by your side, pressing a kiss to your cheek.

“There is my girl!” Melina cheers. An outbreak of hugging ensues.

You mingle politely for a while with the other families milling around your own. Natasha appears intermittently, being the centre of attention today. Yelena is by your side (with her arm annoyingly resting on your shoulder to remind you that she’s taller) until one of her hockey friends pilfers her to show her something. In the few moments that you’re unaccompanied, Natasha resurfaces from the crowd, takes your arm and leads you somewhere a little quieter, and a little less visible to the masses.

“I just, um,” she realises she’s still holding your arm and lets go of it with a blush, “I wanted to thank you for being here. Like actually. It means a lot to me. I know— I know that in a couple of weeks I won’t be here properly, and it might make things weird, but —”

Now is the perfect time, you decide. As she continues to nervously ramble you pull the crescent moon necklace in its little velvet box from your pocket, and present it to her. She falls silent and looks at you.

“It’s for you,” you say unnecessarily, opening it to show her the treasure inside. Her eyes widen. “I— I want to do this with you. I want to give us a try. I like being with you.”

And as you clasp the delicate chain around her neck, and lean up to press a chaste kiss to her lips, Natasha understands. Love is something you earn.

She entwines your hand with hers, and together the two of you make your way back towards your family.

#natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff x you #natasha romanoff x fem reader #natasha romanoff x female reader #natasha romanoff #natalia romanova #black widow #high school au #marvel high school au #mama melina paramore reference u get a cookie if u spot it

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steveandnatlover76 · 26 days

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Melina: There‘s that look again…

Alexei: Da! It‘s soft mother’s look only reserved for James, Sarah and Lena.

Melina: AND Steve! They do make a beautiful family.

Yelena: Gosh, admit it, we‘re all getting soft! Soft-boiled Black Widows!

#romanogers #black widow #captain america #natasha romanoff #steve rogers #yelena belova #melina vostokoff #alexei shostakov #red guardian #black widow family #domestic avengers #the avengers #my otp #mama nat

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widowpunx · 2 years

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Natasha Romanoff & Yelena Belova & Melina Vostokoff - Butterfly X Metamorphosis

#black widow #natasha romanoff #natasha romanov #black widow movie #natasha and yelena #yelena belova #melina vostokoff #yelena x natasha #natasha romanoff deserved better #mama melina vostokoff #mcu ladies #a force #natasha the avenger #avengers endgame #og6 avengers

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scuderiasundays · 10 months

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chili’s angels

summary: carlos can’t say no to his little girls, leaving him with some explaining to do on media day + a little insta au at the end 🌶️

words: 806

a/n: this one was in my drafts for a while but i brought it out for @thatsdemko and all the dad! carlos girlies out there. i know there are a lot of you! tagging @vamossainz55, @sainzcaleruega, @monzabee, and @diorleclerc just because. feedback is much appreciated as always. hugs and kisses 🫶🏼

When Y/N found out she was pregnant with twin girls, Carlos was over the moon. He had been raised by a vivacious mother and alongside two sisters, who despite driving him mad as a child, had become his closest confidantes. Carlos stopped wearing the Tom Ford cologne you once loved when it started to trigger your nausea. He rushed to a nearby drive-through at midnight solely to satisfy your craving for fries and a milkshake. And when your shoelaces needed tying, he was always there to help.

“I feel like I’m asking way too much of you,” you spoke. He smiled and gently caressed your growing belly. "Never, mi amor. Taking care of you and our girls is my purpose now," he said tenderly. "You're an amazing mom already, and I can't wait to see our daughters grow up with the same strength and love that you have."

You had held off on naming the twins because you strongly felt you owed it to your daughters to meet them and get an actual feel for their energies. Together, you spent an evening brainstorming a list of potential names, Carlos voicing a particular preference for their names starting with the same letter. Labor proved to be more challenging than anyone had ever prepared you for, leaving you drained once it was over. Carlos cradled the newborns in his arms, softly uttering their names, "Melina" and "Mila," while his gaze shifted from one little face to the other.

Flash forward, and your twin daughters thought the world of their dad. You loved getting to see Carlos in a new light, your love for him only growing as you watched him interact with your girls. "Can we go outside and play? Please!" Melina and Mila were like the Energizer Bunny times two on the rare weekends when Carlos was home. Although he rarely said no to them, they were both feeling under the weather, so he shook his head. "How about we stay inside and do some drawing?" he suggested.

"Can we paint your nails? Mamá always lets us," the girls asked, their eyes widening as they edged closer to him. Carlos paused for a moment, thinking, what harm could it do? Eventually, he nodded in agreement. The girls knew exactly where their mother kept her nail polish kit and eagerly fetched the equipment. "We have Barbie pink and Ferrari red, just like our cars," Melina said, holding up the bottles with her pudgy fingers. "Mama wears the red one when we watch you drive on TV," Mila chimed in. He assumed Melina was referring to the little toy LaFerraris he had bought the girls on their birthday. He loved watching the girls as they raced in their garden, a tangible sign they had inherited his passion for cars.

"What's that thing you always say, Papá? For the Ferrari?" Mila looked up at her dad with chocolate brown eyes. "Forza Ferrari, mija," Carlos replied. Before he could even pick a color, Melina grabbed his hand and started painting his thumbnail bright red. The girls both had a hard time staying within the lines, so Carlos took it upon himself to clean up the edges. After they were done, he was instructed to place each hand under the UV lamp. He couldn’t help but wonder if the nail polish would come off easily later, but he soon noticed the excitement of being nail artists had worn the twins out. He picked them up and gently laid them down for a nap.

As Carlos boarded his flight to Hungary, he realized that his red manicure was not coming off without a fight. He absentmindedly picked at his nails, silently wishing his wife had been there to offer him the mini nail file she always carried. With media day approaching, he knew that people would definitely pick up on his vibrant nails.

"Nice nails, Carlos. Whose handiwork is this?" Natalie, a familiar face, pointed at his hands with a smile. Carlos chuckled and replied, "Oh, this masterpiece? My twin daughters painted them. I just don’t know how to say no to those two." He shrugged, shaking his head.

"Well, here they are to say hello.” The TV presenter had organized a surprise Zoom call with Y/N and Carlos' daughters, who had been nicknamed "Chili’s Angels" by his fans.

"Buenos días, mis hijas. I hope you're feeling better," he greeted them, waving at the camera. Melina proudly held up her mom's hand, showcasing her red nails. "Look! You and Mamá match now!" she exclaimed. Carlos winked at his wife, grateful for the little moment of connection despite the distance.

"Forza Ferrari, Papá!" Mila squealed, waving goodbye. “They really are my angels, all three of them,” he thought, setting off a mental countdown of days until he was back in their arms again.

﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏﹏

liked by yourusername, landonorris, and 57,575 others

carlossainz55: life is sweeter with my angels. hope i’m making you proud 🫶🏼

yourusername: we’re so lucky to have you! you just had to choose THAT photo of mila scarfing down her pizza? clearly my genes 🍕🤤

fan1: chili’s angels merch when? i swear i will buy it ALL

landonorris: ask melly and milly who their favorite uncle is and i’ll let you by at the start on sunday!

carlossainz55: “come over, uncle lando! we can paint your nails orange.” - melina & mila sainz

anasainzvdec: the most adorable nieces an aunt could wish for ❤️

scuderiaferrari: when mila said “forza ferrari” in an interview this morning! who’s cutting the damn onions?

fan2: carlos and @yourusername are starting them off young 🥹

#carlos sainz imagine #carlos sainz x reader #carlos sainz x y/n #carlos sainz x you #carlos sainz edit #carlos sainz jr #carlos sainz #f1 x you #carlos sainz fluff #f1 imagine #f1 x reader #f1 fic #f1 instagram au #carlos sainz one shot #carlos sainz instagram edit #carlos sainz fic #dad carlos

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togrowoldinv · 8 months

Text

Sleepover

Natasha Romanoff x Female Reader

When Yelena invites you to go home with her for the weekend, you spend some time with Natasha. She finds out you haven’t been with anyone before and offers to be your first

Warnings: Smut! 18+ please! Kissing, cursing, innocent reader, oral (R receiving), hot older Natasha

Natasha Romanoff Masterlist 1, Natasha Romanoff Masterlist 2, Main Masterlist

When your friend Yelena asked you to go home with her for the weekend, you agreed easily. It sounded like a fun time to spend with her and meet her family and friends back home.

But something else was motivating you too. Her very attractive older sister.

You’ve met Natasha before. She helped move Yelena in along with their parents. The redhead was nice to you that say. You’ve seen her countless more times through the phone while she’s FaceTimed Yelena.

So, there’s no denying you have a crush on her. Especially not when you enter the home and she’s standing in the kitchen with very little clothes on.

“We’re here!” Yelena calls out.

“Good to see you, sestra,” Natasha says, coming to the foyer. “I was just coming in from the pool.” She hugs her sister and kisses her cheek. “And it’s y/n, right?”

“Yeah, it’s nice to see you again,” you say.

Natasha smiles in agreement. It’s nice for her to see you again too. She turns back towards the kitchen and you can’t help but watch her body as she does so. The bikini bottoms she’s wearing leaves you able to see most of her.

“Hey, eyes off,” Yelena snaps at you.

“Sorry,” you reply.

You two go up the stairs and put your bags in Yelena’s room. She gives you a quick tour of the house before you two decide to go get lunch.

“We’re going to the diner, Nat. Do you want anything?” Yelena asks.

“No thanks. But hey, Mama is cooking dinner so eat a lot now,” Natasha says.

“Is she not a good cook?” You ask. Both of the girls chuckle. You’ll take that as a yes.

“Come on.” Yelena pulls you outside to her car.

You listen to the usual music as you drive there. Inside, you find a bustling group of tables and food that smells delicious.

Yelena knows a few people and they call her over to their table. You follow quietly.

“Yelena, you’re back in town!” A boy says excitedly. He stands up to hug her.

“Yes, yes Peter. The life of the party has returned,” Yelena says.

“Welcome back,” a girl speaks up this time. You recognize her from photos. She glances at you. “I’m Wanda.”

“Y/n,” you supply. “I’m Yelena’s roommate.”

The table greets you and you two sit down with them. Yelena orders you way too much food. The conversation is easy to join in on even though the friends have known each other forever.

They tell you about a party later tonight and Yelena says you’ll be there. When you go back to her house, Natasha is dressed in a cropped tank top and blue jean shorts.

“Yelena, malyshka!” Melina greets her. She hugs her even when Yelena protests it.

“My girls back in the same home!” Alexei adds in. He hugs Yelena too.

You politely greet them and ask if they need any help with dinner. They sho you away from the kitchen.

Yelena goes up to her room to change so that leaves you in the dining room with Natasha.

“So, how’s school going?” Nat asks.

“It’s going well. Not as hard as I thought it would be,” you say.

“You must be one smart girl then,” Natasha says.

“I’d like to think so.”

“And how’s Yelena doing? She doesn’t ever have much to say about it all.”

Natasha looks genuinely concerned about her sister.

“Yeah she’s good too. I make her get up for class most days,” you say. That makes Nat chuckle.

“Thank you for looking out for her,” Natasha says. She stands from her seat and places a hand on your shoulder. Her grip is strong as she looks into your eyes. “I owe you. If you need anything, let me know, okay?”

“Oh- okay,” you say. Something about her words seem loaded with meaning.

Yelena comes back downstairs and the rest of the family comes into the dining room. Dinner goes well. You enjoy the banter of the group. Soon, you head off to the party.

It’s fun for a while. You meet some more of Yelena’s friends and have a few drinks. Nothing crazy. But when you’re ready to leave, Yelena has her eyes on taking someone home.

“Yelena, let’s go,” you say. The girl is drunk, you can tell that much.

“Kate is coming with me!” She says. You know they have a history, so you don’t even question it.

“Okay. Come on, lovebirds.”

You get back to the house okay and Yelena runs off with Kate to her bedroom. You figure that leaves you with the couch and no clothes to change into.

You’ve only been sitting on it for a few minutes when Natasha comes down the stairs. She catches sight of you.

“My sister kick you out?” She asks.

“She’s having her own sleepover,” you say with a dry chuckle.

“Brutal,” Nat teases. “Come with me.”

“What?”

She doesn’t reply, but you follow her anyways. Upstairs, she directs you into her bedroom.

“You’re not sleeping on the couch, y/n,” Nat says. She opens her drawers and takes out a shirt and shorts for you. “And you’re not sleeping in those clothes.”

You don’t argue with her. You only go down the hallway and change into the clothes. Natasha likes the way you look in her clothes.

She pulls down the sheets next to her and gestures for you get in. You slip under them, enjoying the feeling of a real bed under you.

“Thank you, Natasha,” you say.

“Of course. Sorry my sister is a shitty host,” Nat says.

You lie back on the pillows. Nat turns to look at you. You hold eye contact with her.

“It’s okay. She’s all tied up in that girl.”

“I know. Surely, someone is all tied up in you too,” Natasha says.

“Nope,” you say dryly.

“No? Why not?” Nat asks.

“It’s just not really happened for me yet,” you admit.

“That’s okay,” Natasha assures you.

“What does it feel like?” You ask. It’s somewhat rhetorical but you also want to know Nat’s answer.

“To be in love? Or to have sex? It’s not the same thing,” Nat says.

“Either.”

“Hm, well what about kissing someone? Have you done that?”

You shake your head and turn away shyly. She reaches her hand out to turn your face back towards her.

“Do you want to?” She asks.

“I- um-“

“We don’t have to,” Nat says. “But I thought maybe this is how I could repay you for looking after my sister.”

“Yes,” you say.

“Yeah?”

“Please yes,” you say.

Natasha smirks and leans in. She stops a couple inches from your lips. Your heart beats so fast in your chest.

She closes the distance and kisses your lips. You barely move, not really knowing what to do or how to kiss her back. But Natasha doesn’t mind. She deepens the kiss.

And you pick up on how to do it quickly. She grins against your lips. Your hands move across her chest to grab her breasts.

“I’m sorry,” you say when she pulls away.

“No, don’t apologize. I’m willing to go as far as you want, y/n,” Natasha says.

“Then keep kissing me,” you say, already feeling addicted to her lips on yours.

Natasha obliges and kisses you again and again and again. Soon, both of your shirts are discarded. Natasha isn’t wearing a bra and the sight of her above you makes you stop in place.

“You’re so beautiful,” you say, admiring her perfect body.

“Thank you, detka,” the Russian falls off her tongue. “Let me show you how beautiful you are too.”

Nat slips your bra off and immediately takes one of your nipples in her mouth. It’s a new sensation. One that you absolutely love. She listens for every sound you make to see what she wants to do more of.

You moan out loudly when she moves her hand down your abdomen and under your shorts. Her hand brushes against your folds and your body jerks in reaction.

“Is this okay?” Natasha asks. Her voice is deep, breathy.

“Yes please, I want you,” you say.

“Okay, baby. Lay back and relax. I’ll take care of you,” Natasha says.

She kisses down your body as she moves to lay between your legs. Your shorts come off along with your panties. You’re self conscious about no one ever seeing you like this before, but you feel better when Natasha dives in.

Nat places kisses around your center and her tongue moves through your folds. She takes her time worshipping you. You try to lean up on your elbows to watch but the pleasure is so strong that you have to stay on your back.

“Fuck Nat. That feels so good,” you say when her thumb brushes over your clit.

“I know, sweetheart. Be a good girl and tell me more,” Natasha says. Her voice vibrates against you.

“I want to come for you to Natasha. I want you to be the first person to make me come,” you say.

“Fuck,” Nat mumbles against you. She grinds her own pussy against the bed.

It’s only a few more minutes before you’re getting a feeling like you’re about to come for Natasha.

“I think- Nat- I’m going to- fuck,” you mumble as your hips move erratically.

“Come for me, y/n. You can do it,” Natasha says.

And you do. For the first time, you understand what it feels like to be taken care of.

“So fucking good,” Natasha says as she cleans you up.

She moves up your body and kisses your lips again. Her tongue moves against yours as you continue to get the hang of it.

Natasha lays next to you to catch her breath and let you catch your own. Her hand intertwines with yours.

“That’s what it feels like,” Natasha says.

“Every time?” You ask. You can’t help the grin on your face.

“No, not every time. But when you really like someone, yes.”

“You- um- you like me?”

“Yes, y/n,” Natasha says. “I really like you.”

You whisper a small yes and Natasha chuckles. She kisses your cheek.

“Can I- um-“

“I’d love for you too, but you don’t have to, babe. I’m okay with just pleasing you,” Natasha says.

“No, no. I want you to feel good too.”

“I already do,” Nat says. “But yeah if you want to, go ahead.”

You smile and shift to lay over Natasha. She kisses you deeply before you move down her body.

Natasha helps you please her in all of the ways she likes. By the end of the night, you’re both exhausted but so happy.

You fall asleep in her arms and wake up to the beautiful sight of her sleeping. She wakes up and snuggles further into you.

After a few good morning kisses, you get dressed and go downstairs together. Yelena notices you wearing Nat’s clothes and the two of you sharing secret glances.

But she only smiles. She always knew you two would find your way together.

#natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff #soft natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff fluff #natasha romanoff comfort #natasha romanoff smut #yelena belova #wanda maximoff

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badingsm · 7 months

Text

Mama DADDY Natasha — The One With The Baby Shower!

Warnings: Some Melina appreciation, alcohol, pregnancy.

"Babe, if I wasn't married to you, I might just love your mother like-"

"What?" Natasha raised her brow at you in warning. "Like what?"

"Like how I love my mother! Duh!" You chuckled nervously, looking away from her intense gaze. "Love, I was just, um, joking."

"You know I'm jea-" She sighed, kissing your temple while rubbing your bump with her warm hand. "Nevermind. Do you need anything? Are you hungry, baby?"

"Nah, I'll probably just talk to your mother," You said while she glared at you again. "And Yelena and Alexei, of course!"

"I'll go get you some water, okay?"

"Mhm, thanks." You nodded, staying in your place while caressing your 7-month-old baby bump. Just then, when you were about to go around and look for your best friends, Melina came trudging by your side with an affectionate smile, seeing you blooming with your second babies. "Melina! Hi! How have you been? How's Ohio? Willow missed you!"

"Yeah, I can tell, she wouldn't let me go." She laughed, and you stood there trying not to get flustered by how beautiful this woman looked (not that you're cheating, just more on admiring and stating facts). "We're good in Ohio. You?"

"We're okay here." You nodded nervously with a grin. "I mean, it would've been better if you moved here."

"I'm sorry, what?" Melina raised her brow when she didn't quite catch your low mumble. "Were you saying something?"

"Oh, no, no." You playfully hit her shoulder, earning a frown from her. "I'm just saying that we're good here. Willow loves to play with Morgan and Peter."

"Good," Melina agreed as Alexei joined the both of you. "Where's your granddaughter?"

"She's with her aunt Yelena," Alexei answered, his voice thick with a Russian accent. "How have you been, huh? Baby number two and three are coming near! And soon, baby number four is coming too!"

"Yeah." You laughed with wide eyes. "We're not really sure with number four yet. Willow and these babies are just, um... surprises..?"

"So, none of this is planned?" Alexei frowned, gesturing wildly towards your stomach, and somewhere else, "I didn't raise my daughter, Natasha, like this! Everything should be-"

"It's because you didn't raise us!" Yelena butted in, looking over where she came from while you followed her vision of line, only to see Kate holding Willow in her arms. "Hey, Y/n/n."

"Lena." You acknowledged her with a gentle smile. "Hi!"

"Hi!"™ She greeted back, her head tilted slightly to the side as she prolonged the vowel.

And it went like that, catching up with the Russian family until Natasha came back with a glass of water and clingy Willow in her arms.

"Everyone!" You heard Tony's voice on the microphone. "We're gathered here today to celebrate another life and another journey with the Romanoffs! Let's give them a round of applause!"

Everybody clapped loudly, with Willow clapping happily along with the guests while you scrunched your nose due to the sensitivity of your ears. Nonetheless, you felt your heart leap in joy as you looked through the room filled with your loved ones.

"Natasha and Y/n, may we hear some speech from here?" Tony asked, making you groan dramatically while Natasha rolled her eyes.

"Baby, we don't have a choice; you know him," Nat comforted. "I promise, after this, I'll give you a foot massage, okay?"

You pouted, "Promise?"

"Cross my heart, my love," Natasha confirmed, guiding you as you walked onto the stage. Being the gentlewoman that she is, she gave you the microphone first.

"Okay." You sighed over the speaker, and the guests laughed. "I just want to thank you all for the effort of coming here. I hope you live for as long as you'd like."

"Baby," The redhead chuckled lowly beside you, shaking her head at your antics while it's her turn to speak. "Thank you very much for coming. We appreciate all the love that you give to our children."

"Not much of a talker, you two." Tony pursed his lips when he grabbed the phone back from Natasha. "Back to the party!"

"Hey, are you okay?" Wanda sauntered towards you. She had just come in because she also needed to be a mother to her children. "I'm sorry I'm late, but I brought a gift."

"Nonsense." You brushed her off. "You shouldn't have. It's okay."

"Nah, I insist." She scrunched her nose adorably, handing you the gift that she wrapped perfectly. Just then, Yelena and the group entered with some alcohol in their arms.

"Lady Yelena!" Thor greeted, "I've brought the Asgardian Ale!"

"This is why I like your company, Thunder." Yelena smirked, grabbing the bottle from the Asgardian while passing it to the others, such as Kate, Carol, Bucky, Sam, Gamora—you get the gist. All of them drank some of the hardcore liquor until all of them stumbled groggily along the hallway except for you and Natasha, of course.

Because Natasha didn't let you when you tried to sneak a little gulp.

"Baby, you're pregnant!" She chastised, kissing your pout away.

"Oh, come on! Let her have her fun!" Tony (the most drunk of them all) drunkingly uttered with a slightly loud voice, making Natasha glare at him with her infamous look. "Fine! Make her sad and old!"

"Shut up, will you?" Natasha mumbled impatiently with gritted teeth before turning back towards you, gazing at your most pitiful look. "I'm sorry, baby, but no."

"Fine." You sighed dramatically. "Wanna go to sleep."

"Okay, let's go." Natasha nodded, standing up when you did as she placed her muscular arms securely around your body.

You raised your brow at her. "Where do you think you're going?"

"I thought we're sleeping?" The redhead stared at you confusedly. "Where else would I go?"

"Oh, you're not sleeping with me tonight," You said with finality as you began walking your way to your shared room. "Go find your place somewhere on the couch—if you could even do that considering those Avengers who thought so highly of themselves when they drank that liquor without giving me some!"

Natasha protested as the others laughed drunkly, "Baby!"

"Night, Romanoff!"

#natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x fem!reader #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff fluff #natasha romanoff x you #black widow #black widow x reader #soft natasha romanoff #marvel

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nataliasquote · 1 month

Text

Double the trouble | new families | n romanoff

Summary: the twins take a trip to meet new family members, but it doesn’t go as smoothly as Natasha wanted

Warnings: cute Mama Nat content

wc: 4.4k

Pairings: WandaNat

Note: I’m not a WandaNat stan, it’s never been my first choice of ship, so tbh I’m still questioning how I ended up with this pairing in this series. Which is why I focus so heavily on Natasha’s relationship with the twins, because it’s something I’m used to writing. Hopefully that clears up why my writing is so imbalanced x

-⧗-

Natasha would be lying if she said that the thought of what was coming today hadn’t kept her awake for most of the night. Wanda slept soundly by her side, unaware of the anxiety coursing through her wife’s body. The older redhead kept her eyes glued to the bedroom door, expecting one if not both toddlers to come running in in the middle of the night as monsters plagued their dreams. But it wasn’t weirdly quiet, which didn’t help to settle Natasha.

It was barely 5:30am by the time she had pulled herself out of bed and padded down to the kitchen, careful not to make any noise past the twins’ rooms. The sun had began to rise as she poured the first of many mugs of coffee, so Natasha wandered out onto the patio and sank onto one of the damp chairs that sat there. She loved the stillness of the morning, a start contrast to the usual chaos of her life. The air was crisp and fresh and just smelled like summer. Her favourite season.

A familiar set of footsteps echoed through the empty kitchen and Natasha smiled, looking over her shoulder just as her wife stepped through the patio doors. Wanda was definitely still half asleep, her hair mussed up from tossing and turning but she still looked as beautiful as ever. She carefully leaned down to give Natasha a kiss before looking out across the view their garden gave them. The house sat on the side of a hill, with the bustling city coming alive beneath them. They loved their location and wouldn’t change it for the world.

“How are you feeling about today?” Wanda asked, settling in the chair across from Nat as the cold stone beneath her feet started to get uncomfortable.

“I don’t know.” Natasha stared into the dark depths of her coffee, her eyes glazing over as she got lost in her thoughts. “That’s what scares me.”

Wanda softly touched her hand across the table. “The girls will be fine. Yelena will love them, as will Melina.”

“They’re not who I’m worried about.” Alexei had the biggest mouth and Natasha couldn’t shake the feeling that he would traumatise her babies. Especially Y/n, who had been really wary about guys recently.

“We can handle him, he won’t hurt them. He’s harmless Nat, except for when he talks. But you’ve got ground rules and Melina knows them, so I know she’s just as anxious as you are that he makes a good impression.”

Natasha just nodded but nibbled on her lip, not fully convinced. Motherhood was her favourite thing in the world, but it sure did attack her nerves and leave them frayed.

“Why don’t you go and wake the babies and I’ll start on breakfast. They can’t sleep for too long otherwise the drive will be hell.” A 7 hour drive with two 3.5 year olds… sounds like so much fun.

Wanda disappeared into the kitchen to get ingredients for breakfast whilst Natasha slowly made her way upstairs. By the layout of the house, the door to Y/n’s room was first. The twins’ rooms were conjoined but separated by a door, allowing them to have their own space.

The hallway light lit the way to Y/n’s bed and Natasha crouched down beside her youngest, stroking her messy curls out of her face as she slept. Despite having Natasha’s hair and eyes, the twins’ nose was definitely Wanda’s, and was Natasha’s favourite thing. Y/n’s tiny lips were parted and she slept peacefully, unaware of her Mama’s presence.

“Y/n, time to wake up sweetheart,” Nat said in her softest voice. She rubbed her daughter’s arm and smiled as the little girl frowned, her whole face screwing up. A small yawn escaped from her as she turned to face the one who disturbed her sleep, but all hard feelings vanished as she came face to face with her admittedly favourite parent.

“Mama,” she mumbled, reaching out with heavy arms. Natasha almost melted at the sight and gently scooped her up, the dead weight of her daughter making the task very inelegant. Almost immediately, Y/n snuggled into her neck and closed her eyes, falling back asleep in the comfort of Natasha’s arms.

Nat kept a strong hold on her before she pushed open the door to Isla’s room, surprised to see the little girl sat up in her bed. She’s clearly heard the noise next door.

“Mama,” was her response, her princess pyjama-covered body flinging itself out of bed and stumbling over to Nat to attach to her legs. “Wakey time?”

“It is wakey time, baby.” Isla’s curls were equally as messy as Y/n’s were, so Natasha didn’t even bother to smooth them down. “How did you sleep?”

“Good. Mr E kept me safe from the monsters.” Mr E was Isla’s stuffed elephant that she’d had since she was a baby. It was a little worn out but she slept with it every single night without fail. An adorable sight.

“He’s doing his job, I see.” Isla toddled over to free him from her tangled covers. “You hungry baby? I think mommy is making pancakes.”

“Pancapes?”

“Let’s go see.” With Y/n still fast asleep against her chest and Isla clutching onto her other hand, it was a miracle Natasha didn’t tumble down the stairs. She was very much relieved when Isla went running over to Wanda and Nat was able to hold Y/n with two arms.

“Don’t tell me she fell asleep again?” Wanda said with a laugh, helping Isla carry her sippy cup over to the table. She settled her toddler into her high chair and kissed her cheeks lovingly.

“Of course she did!” Natasha was leaning against the back of her chair with Y/n curled up in her lap, chest rising and falling almost in sync with Natasha’s heartbeat. “I don’t know if she slept well.”

“Is it mean to say I hope she didn’t?” Wanda asked, adding a ladle of pancake batter to her pan. “Would make our lives certainly a lot easier.”

“Mommy, pancapes please!” Isla announced, drumming her little fists against her plastic tray table. She kicked her legs eagerly in anticipation as the smell of fresh pancakes filled the air.

“Patience, baby girl. Mommy needs to cook them first.”

Natasha had successfully woken Y/n up for the second time, but this time the scowl on her small face did not let up.

“Hey grumpy girl,” she cooed, bouncing Y/n softly as though she was a baby. “Mornings really aren’t your thing, huh?”

“Here,” Wanda handed Natasha Y/n’s cup of milk, her go to in the morning. The twins had outgrown their morning bottles, but the comfort of warm milk at breakfast was something they both still enjoyed. “Hello grouchy,” she said with a kiss to her head.

Y/n did not stop glaring at everyone throughout breakfast, and Natasha and Wanda found it thoroughly entertaining. Her poor pancakes were being murdered by her tiny plastic fork and spoon, and with the combined mess of her squished raspberries, it sure looked like a massacre.

The plan was to drive to Melina’s in the morning and arrive late afternoon, just in time for the twins’ dinner and bedtime. This was the first time they would be sleeping in a different bed and both mothers were anxious to see how they would handle it. Hence the shortened night sleep.

Bags and car packed, twins buckled into their car seats and google maps yelling directions from Natasha’s phone, they were finally on the road. Y/n watched the world go by out of the window, the fluffy summer clouds catching her attention. She reached her hand up and stroked it through the air, trying to grab them.

Beside her, Isla was playing with Mr E, of course. He had one ear smaller than the other thanks to her teething phase, but she still cuddled him close and babbled to him quietly.

So far, so good, Wanda thought.

But she’d spoken too soon.

One hour. That’s how long they’d been on the road for before the sound of cries came from the back seat. There was still another 45 minutes before their first scheduled stop so Natasha kept driving, trying to block out the piercing screams behind her.

Wanda craned around in her seat, trying to pinpoint who was crying. But seeing Isla’s smiling face, she knew it was Y/n. She was sat directly behind Wanda’s chair which made the whole situation a lot harder.

“It’s ok, baby, it’s ok. Mommy’s here.” She tried her best to soothe her, rubbing her knee just about. But Y/n continued to cry and now Isla was looking a bit put out. The last thing the mothers needed was two crying toddlers.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Natasha asked, taking a small look at her daughter before she merged onto the highway. “Wands, can you-“

“I’ve got her, don’t worry.” She turned around in her chair more, trying to look directly at Y/n. “Don’t cry baby, what’s wrong?”

“My stuffy!” Y/n wailed, kicking her feet against the hard plastic of her seat. “My stuffy!”

Isla looked at her sister and then looked at the floor in front of her, spotting the familiar orange and black stuffed animal in the wrong place.

“Mommy she drop it,” Isla helpfully pointed out, gesturing down in front of Y/n’s seat. Wanda glanced down and sighed. Y/n had dropped her favourite tiger plushie onto the floor and out of reach, triggering her little outburst. The Sokovian reached behind her seat to grab it but failed; it was too far away. Y/n saw her unsuccessful attempt and cried harder. Her tiger was doomed.

“I’ll get it,” Natasha muttered, taking one hand off the steering wheel and reaching it behind Wanda’s seat whilst keeping the car steady on the road. She was such a typical dad driver, almost as if she were reaching back for candy.

“Nat no, you drive, I’ll do it. You really forget I’m a witch don’t you.” Natasha smiled sheepishly and retracted her hand, allowing Wanda to retrieve the toy with a few simple red wisps. She brought it to the front and dusted off and bits of dirt before handing it back to Y/n who seized it gladly and stuffed her face into its fur, her cries ceasing immediately.

“Noisy,” Isla said, making Nat and Wanda burst out laughing. Oh she was such a hypocrite even at the ripe age of three.

The gas station they stopped at luckily had a McDonald’s attached, which meant the twins struck up a chant for Happy Meals the second they saw their favourite restaurant. And luckily for Wanda and Natasha, their girls had a habit of falling asleep after lunch, so this was impeccably timed.

Two chicken nugget happy meals silenced the twins enough for the moms to get some peace and quiet. Natasha picked at her wrap whilst Wanda chewed on her fries, not overly fond of the burgers sold here. The restaurant wasn’t too busy, with it being a Wednesday, but Y/n and Isla still peered around at everyone who passed their table, making several elderly couples coo over their matching hair and outfits.

Wanda’s guilty pleasure was dressing them in the same outfit. She had to, before they got too old and refused. Natasha let her do most of their clothes shopping and each week she would return, squealing over the latest adorable outfit.

Y/n and Isla were comfortable but cute today. Black leggings and little grey sweatshirts with their newest pair of white converse. If Wanda was the clothes lover, Natasha was the shoes. Something about tiny versions of her own shoes made her heart clench and she just couldn’t refuse them. But of course there was a spare change of clothes on hand, just in case.

After another 5 hours of driving and stops, the SUV turned down a street that was incredibly familiar to the redhead behind the wheel. She drove slowly, taking in her surroundings. This place had never been associated with a happy time in her life, and receiving the news that Melina had bought the house again shocked her.

She cut off the engine in the driveway and felt Wanda’s hand slip into hers, giving her an encouraging squeeze. Wanda didn’t need to read her wife’s mind to feel the anxiety radiating off her, so she stepped up to be her rock and grounded her instantly.

“Where is this?” Isla piped up, her eyes glued to the window and the trees outside. Y/n was still half asleep but followed her sister’s gaze.

“Let’s go find out.” Natasha climbed out of her side and went to get Isla, whilst Wanda did the same with Y/n. The youngest was far too tired to want to walk, so she clung to Wanda’s cardigan desperately, wanting the safety of her mommy in this strange environment. But the second Natasha appeared she reached out, tiny fists grabbing at the air.

“Come on big girl,” Natasha groaned, taking Y/n from Wanda and settling her on her hip. “Let’s go see your aunt and grandma.”

Y/n didn’t clock what she said, too focused on playing with Natasha’s hair. Wanda held Isla’s hand tightly as the four made their way to the front door. There was a faint rustling once the doorbell was pressed and the door flung open to reveal a grinning blonde woman.

“They’re here!” She yelled, bouncing on her toes in excitement. “Natasha! You brought my babies!”

The redhead rolled her eyes. “Hello to you too Yelena.” Yelena barely acknowledged her sister, too busy smiling widely at the small red haired girl in her arms. “Are you going to invite us inside or are we going to stand here and freeze?”

“Yelena let your sister and her family inside!” A voice called from the dark hallway, making the blonde woman smile sheepishly and step to the side. Natasha tightened her grip around Y/n and stepped inside, focusing her attention on her daughter to keep her anxiety at bay. Walking into her childhood home had hit her harder than she’d expected.

Isla held onto Wanda’s hand as the family entered, suddenly feeling really shy in this new space. The interior was dark but weirdly comforting, the dated furniture only adding to the odd charm. Wanda could see how tense Natasha was just from the way she was standing and she wished she could comfort her.

The atmosphere was tense and awkward, and even the twins sensed it. Isla had stopped smiling and Y/n looped her arms around Natasha’s neck, pulling her closer. Nat kissed her hand and smiled reassuringly.

“How was your drive?” A dark haired woman asked, appearing in the corner of the room like a ghost. Pale skin, dark hair, Y/n was intrigued.

“Not too bad, a bit of traffic in the city but we got through it.”

“Mama who’s that?” Isla asked, holding onto Natasha’s pant leg whilst looking between the two strange women in front of her.

Natasha crouched down and placed Y/n on the floor, holding both of her girls by their waists.

“Ok girls, this is Mama’s sister,” she pointed to Yelena who gave a thumbs up. “And that’s your grandma. That’s my mom.” Y/n stared at Melina with hesitation. She could hear how uncertain her Mama was and that manifested itself in her own thoughts too. Even thought she was only two and a half.

“Who wants to give Aunt Yelena a hug?” Yelena sat on the floor and patted in front of her.

“They’re not dogs, Lena. They don’t just run over to you like that.”

Yelena frowned. “Well I don’t know! Fanny does it!”

At the mention of his name, the Akita perked his head up and trotted over to Yelena before settling down with his head in her lap. The twins’ eyes lit up at the sight of the dog.

“Doggy! Can we pet Mama?”

Wanda studied the scene in front of her. “Is he well trained, Yelena?” The blonde nodded and so did Melina. “Go on then girls. But be gentle.”

Y/n and Isla held each others hand and slowly approached the dog, completely missing the way Yelena grinned as they approached. She wanted to be the cool Aunt who spoilt her nieces and this was a win in her eyes.

“If you sit next to him he might give you kisses,” she said in her heavy Russian accent, gently pushing Fanny off her lap to let the twins take a seat. Y/n was more hesitant, letting Isla take Yelena’s hand first. The blonde crossed her legs and settled the small girl into her lap before holding out her arm for Y/n.

“It’s ok sweetheart,” Natasha encouraged when Y/n looked back at her moms. But that didn’t work. The youngest girl ran back to her Mama and pressed into her side, not trusting strangers like her sister did. She watched from the safety of Natasha’s arms as Isla stroked the Akita and giggled as his wet kisses tickled her cheek.

“Do you want to come with me and get a drink, Y/n?” Melina asked, smiling softly at the young girl with her hand out. Y/n looked up at Wanda and Natasha who nodded towards Melina, trying to get her daughter to detached herself from Natasha.

“You can’t stay with me,” Natasha said firmly, although her voice still had that gentleness to it. But Y/n really was struggling, and her change in voice made the little girl’s eyes well up with tears. Natasha glanced at Wanda with a sigh and quickly excused herself and Y/n back outside.

“What’s wrong, detka? Why the tears?”

“Just want you,” Y/n mumbled, rubbing her eye. Natasha shook her head and refused the toddler’s request for cuddles. “Mama!”

“You’re tired, aren’t you?” Her motherly instincts had hit the nail on the head and Y/n nodded. Not necessarily sleep-tired, but more from being in a new place. She just wanted to go home and be with her mamas but clearly that wasn’t an option. “Why don’t we see if grandma Melina has some milk or juice so you can have a nap.”

Y/n brushed against her lips with her thumb as she thought. “I get tiger?” Natasha allowed her to retrieve the forgotten stuffed animal from the car before they headed back inside to find Wanda sat on the floor giving Fanny some belly tickles with Isla.

Nat gave Y/n a small nudge of encouragement and watched as she toddled over to Melina, clutching her tiger for courage.

“Milk, p’ease?” She asked quietly,

Melina’s heart softened at her request and she glanced at Natasha fondly. “Of course, let’s go find some.” Offering her hand to the small girl who took it after a few seconds, they disappeared into the kitchen, Natasha following to loiter in the doorway between the two rooms.

Melina had picked Y/n up and sat her on the counter whilst she rummaged in the fridge to find a glass bottle of milk. She may act cold, but the second she’d found out the twins were visiting she had gone out and bought all the supplies she could think of. High chairs, plastic cups and plates, toys. You name it, she probably bought it.

And Natasha couldn’t quite believe it when she saw her ‘mom’ pull out a brand new cup with Y/n’s favourite princesses on it. The toddler smiled and accepted the drink, sipping on it carefully through the lid.

“You didn’t have to do that.” Natasha said, crossing her arms against her chest.

Melina shrugged off her comment, not wanting to be complimented. “I never got to do it with you.”

Natasha smiled a watery smile and crossed the threshold, gravitating towards the dining room window that overlooked the garden she knew so well. “You kept our old swingset.”

“Didn’t have the heart to take it down.”

“I used to love it so much-“

“You thought if you swung high enough you’d be able to touch the stars,” Melina cut her off, looking at Y/n fondly. “She looks so much like you.”

Natasha’s eyes lingered on the desolate swing set for a few more moments. If she looked hard enough she swore she could see tiny lights in the trees, dancing around the branches like forest stars.

“She’s got your heart too.”

Natasha wiped a stray tear and turned around, pressing her lips into a tight smile. “She’s my little miracle.”

“What happened with her?”

Natasha leaned her hands on the closest dining chair and sighed, not really wanting to relieve the moment that still felt so fresh in her mind, despite it occurring over two years ago.

“She had a heart defect when she was born and the doctors didn’t pick up on it right away. It was obvious that she was a bit smaller than Isla but they thought that was it. It wasn’t until a couple days later that she started struggling to breathe because her heart wasn’t working properly. I really thought we were going to lose her before we even brought her home.”

Y/n was oblivious that she was being talked about and she just sat there idly drinking her milk and fiddling with the technological watch on Melina’s wrist. She didn’t understand, but the sound of her Mama’s voice was soothing and made her eyelids start to droop slowly.

“Does she still have trouble now?”

Natasha shook her head. “Thankfully no. We still have to have regular check ups just to make sure it’s all ok, but the surgery seemed to have fixed the problem.” She couldn’t help but pout at Y/n tiredness as she noticed from across the room. “Would you mind making another cup for Isla? They could do with a nap before dinner.”

Melina happily obliged and sent Natasha back into the living room with a cup for Isla who gratefully accepted it. She leaned against Yelena as she drank it and the blonde woman held her carefully, her boisterous nature suddenly flipped 180 in the presence of a child. Wanda came to join Natasha’s side, having missed her even for those few minutes.

“Do you want to put them down for a nap?” Natasha whispered to Wanda, knowing that she felt very much on the outside of this situation. “I’ll go and bring the bags to our room.”

“Have the girls got their own room?”

“Yeah. Yelena offered to sleep on the couch so they’re taking her room and we’re across the hall. Like always.”

Wanda slipped her hand into Natasha’s and pressed a small kiss to her lips, wanting to keep it short and sweet. “Ok then, I’ll let Isla finish if you go get the stuff.”

After an almost-asleep Y/n was placed on Wanda’s lap, Natasha headed back to the car to start ferrying their bags back and forth.

“Isla, baby, it’s nap time,” the Sokovian cooed, only to be met with grumbles of protest.

“No, stay Lena!” Whining was a clear sign that she was tired, but Isla was a stubborn as Natasha and scowled hard, tiny face screwing up.

“I’m sure Yelena will come and help if you’re a good girl.” Bribery, the most effective parenting tactic. Isla turned around and looked up at Yelena with her big green eyes, completely melting the Russian’s heart and making her fall head over heels in love.

“Why don’t you show me your cool pyjamas, huh?” Yelena said, tickling Isla gently in the ribs. This got the toddler up and moving, pulling as hard as she could on Yelena’s hand to make her follow. Wanda chuckled and let Yelena lead the way up the small staircase to her room where two makeshift beds had been set up.

Natasha had worked speedy and already laid out a folded pair of pyjamas for the girls on each bed, and Isla ran straight towards hers, eager to show Yelena. She babbled away as the blonde helped her get changed, her sleepy state now a million miles away.

Y/n let Wanda get her changed and didn’t protest once, but the slightly frown on her face was a telltale sight that she still wasn’t happy.

“Will you read story?” Isla asked Yelena as she climbed under the covers, Mr E tucked safely under her arm. Yelena looked at Wanda for permission who just shook her head.

“We usually only do stories at bedtime.”

“Maybe later, soldier.” Isla frowned but accepted her answer and yawned. “Sleep well, little one.”

Both adults backed out of the room and found Natasha downstairs with Melina, their voices hushed as they talked.

“Are they always so different?” Yelena asked, plopping down onto the couch and almost hitting Natasha in the process.

“What do you mean?”

The blonde screwed up her face. “Well, Isla is so… you know, and Y/n is…” descriptive as ever.

“They’ve always been like that,” Natasha sighed, leaning her head on Wanda’s shoulder and smiling as their hands found each other.

“Y/n is her Mama’s girl,” Wanda said with a fond smile, no hint of resentment or jealous in her words. “But they’re so different it’s crazy sometimes. And Y/n has her moments, but she prefers to watch while Isla talks. Saves our ears, that’s for sure.”

“Speaking of talking, where is he?” There was bitterness to Natasha’s tone and Melina clenched her jaw, her hands coming to smooth over her black pants.

“I sent him away for the week,” she admitted, watching Natasha’s eyes shift at the news. “I didn’t think it would be good for the girls… or you.”

Natasha’s original hardened expression slowly softened and she bit her tongue to stop the tears building. Motherhood had made her soft and emotional, but she didn’t realise just how much.

“A mother always knows, Natasha. I’m sure you both would have done the same if it was the other way around.”

It was like a weight lifted off her shoulders and for the first time since they’d left that morning, she finally relaxed. Her girls were safely asleep upstairs, Wanda was grounding her by her side, and the family she had abandoned for years had welcomed her back with open arms.

Maybe these reconnections weren’t going to be so bad after all.

#natasha romanoff #fanfic #marvel #natasha romanoff x reader #double the trouble au #natasha romanoff x daughter!reader #wandanat #wanda maximoff x daughter!reader #wanda maximoff x reader #wandanat x daughter!reader

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b1ackoutartist · 6 months

Text

Wrapped

The soft lullaby hummed through the small apartment, a gentle tune breaking the silence of the night. Natasha Romanoff, once a feared and respected CEO, was now frequently found dozing off on the nursery floor, fingers entwined with those of her baby son, Alex.

The dining room was exquisitely decorated. Soft chandeliers, glinting silverware, and crisp tablecloths laid the foundation for a perfect family dinner. But there was an unmistakable tension in the air, more palpable than the rich aroma of food that wafted through the room.

Y/N gently cradled baby Alex, who cooed and drooled, blissfully unaware of the strained dynamics around the table. On one side was Melina, her icy gaze focused primarily on Y/N, occasionally darting to the baby. Opposite her sat Alexei, a silent observer, while Yelena played peek-a-boo with baby Alex, trying to lighten the mood.

Y/N attempted small talk. "Melina, this roast looks delicious."

Ignoring the compliment, Melina quipped, "Isn't it a bit too early for Alex to be teething, dear?"

Y/N's face flushed. "Every baby is different. The pediatrician said it's normal."

"It's just that when Natasha was a baby," Melina began, her voice dripping with passive aggression, "she followed every milestone to the letter. And Yelena, too."

Yelena rolled her eyes, shooting Y/N a sympathetic look. "Mama, can we not do this tonight?"

But Melina continued, "Natasha has a lot on her plate as a CEO, and I don’t think she needs more stress. Perhaps if you focused more on understanding the baby and less on whatever you've been doing..."

Y/N’s grip tightened around Alex. "I'm doing my best, Melina."

Natasha clenched her fist. "Mother, enough!"

Alexei tried to lighten the atmosphere, sharing an old anecdote from Natasha’s childhood. But Melina’s criticisms, veiled under the guise of 'advice', continued. They stung Y/N, the insecurities she tried so hard to bury resurfacing with each jab.

Y/N tried to focus on Alex, feeding and playing with him, but her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.

Yelena slid closer to Y/N. "Ignore her," she whispered. "You're doing great. And Nat thinks so too."

Just then, Alex wailed, startling everyone. Y/N tried to soothe him, but Melina's sharp voice cut through, "Do you even know how to hold him right?"

That was the last straw for Natasha. Standing up, she addressed her mother coldly, "Can I talk to you? Outside."

The room was silent as the two women left. Alexei sighed heavily, turning his attention to his food, while Yelena tried to comfort the shaken Y/N.

Outside, Natasha and Melina stood facing each other, the night air charged with tension.

"I won’t let you belittle Y/N any longer," Natasha started, her voice stern and unwavering.

"She's not right for you," Melina retorted, "She's keeping you from your responsibilities. She doesn’t even know how to raise Alex properly."

"You don't get to decide that. She’s an amazing mother, and I love her," Natasha countered, "If you can't respect that, then you won’t see Alex or me again."

Melina's eyes widened in disbelief. "You'd choose her over your own family?"

"I am choosing my family. Y/N and Alex are my family. And if you can’t accept that, then you’re pushing us away, not the other way around."

The weight of Natasha’s words hung heavy in the air. Melina looked away, struggling to find words.

The weight of Natasha’s words hung heavy in the air. Melina looked away, struggling to find words. The two women stood in silence, the cool night breeze whipping around them, carrying with it an air of finality.

After a few minutes, Natasha turned on her heels and walked back inside. The atmosphere in the dining room was thick, and everyone turned their attention to her as she entered. Without saying a word, she took baby Alex from Y/N's arms. "Get your things," she instructed gently but firmly, "We're leaving."

Y/N nodded, her eyes misting over with tears, yet she felt a strange sense of relief. She stood up, her movement drawing Yelena's attention. The younger woman approached her, whispering, "I'll come by tomorrow, okay? Just take care of yourself and Alex."

As Y/N moved to gather their things, Alexei tried to mediate. He stood, approaching his red-headed daughter. "Natasha, stay. Let's talk this out."

Natasha looked at him, her green eyes icy and resolute. "I appreciate it, but there’s nothing more to say. I won't let anyone disrespect my family."

The old bear of a man looked saddened. "Just remember this is your home. Always."

Natasha offered him a weak smile, appreciating his sentiment but knowing that tonight, leaving was the right choice. She adjusted baby Alex in her arms, feeling his little heartbeat against her. The weight of her son was grounding, a constant reminder of what mattered most.

With Y/N by her side, and their belongings in hand, they made their way to the door. The house that was once filled with laughter and joy seemed cold and unwelcoming. But as the door closed behind them, they knew they were stepping into a new chapter, one where they could create a loving environment for Alex and themselves.

Yelena and Alexei watched them go, a mix of sadness and understanding in their eyes. Melina, still outside, heard the car start and drive off. She leaned against the wall, a wave of regret washing over her. The realization that she might have lost her daughter and grandson because of her stubbornness weighed heavy on her heart.

#marvel #black widow #black widow x reader #natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanov #natasha romanoff imagine

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hyper-fixated-delusions · 4 months

Text

Caught up.

Wanda Maximoff x Romanoff fem!reader.

A/N: Hey guys, it’s been a while, thank you for your patience! I hope you enjoy this new piece and I apologize for any mistakes! Also comments, reblogs, shares and likes are super appreciated, thank you! :)

Translations: “Solnyshka.” Sunshine.

“Milaya.” Darling.

“Detka.” Baby.

“Sestra.” Sister.

Word count: 2,452.

Masterlist.

You were lounging in your bed texting your girlfriend when a knock on your door stops you from replying.

“Y/N?” Your mother Melina calls out from the other side of the door.

“Come in,” you say, sitting up in bed as you set your phone to the side, your mom walking into your room.

“Solnyshka, I’m going to step out real quick to get some groceries, it’ll take an hour at the most, did you need anything?” Melina asks.

“No, mama, I’m good,” you smile, “did you want some company?” You ask, wishing to every deity that your mother says no, beaming internally when she shakes her head.

“No, it’s fine milaya, you stay here, I’ll see you in a bit,” Melina says as she turns to walk out of your room.

“Okay mama, be safe!” You exclaim as she shuts your door.

Grabbing your phone immediately, you send a text to Wanda.

“How fast can you make it to my house?” You ask, receiving a response mere seconds later.

“I think in about 25 minutes.”

“I’m home alone.” You text back.

“Be there in 15.”

Is the response you get and you beam giddily.

Getting up from your bed, you go to your bathroom to freshen up, pacing around your room once you’re done as you wait for Wanda, checking the time constantly.

It’s about 20 minutes later when you hear a knock on your door that you descend the stairs hurriedly.

Opening the door to reveal a stunning Wanda, dressed in a simple white shirt and blue jeans.

“That was longer than 15 minutes, love,” you say as you pull Wanda into your house by the hand, locking the door behind her.

“I know, I know, it’s just Pietro was being an idiot and not letting me leave, I had to bribe him so he could let me go,” your girlfriend says as you pull her in by the waist.

“What’d he do now?” You ask with a chuckle and Wanda shakes her head.

“I’ll tell you later,” she says, as she wraps her arms around your neck, leaning up slightly to connect her lips with yours in a passionate kiss.

As you stand in the foyer of your house making out, you push Wanda up against the wall and slot your leg between hers, causing a moan to slip past her lips.

“Oh god, detka,” she moans against your ear, rolling her hips slightly to increase the friction as you kiss her neck, “let’s take this up to your room,” she breathes as you nod, pulling away and leading her up the stairs.

When you make it to your room you and Wanda immediately seek each other out, your hands groping at Wanda’s breasts from outside her shirt.

“You’re wearing too many clothes,” you whisper as you take the fabric into your hands and pull with desperation, the shirt ripping almost instantly.

“Oh come on, was it absolutely necessary to rip my shirt, detka?” Wanda asks in frustration as she stares at the garment in her hands.

“To get you into bed faster? Yes and I’m sorry if you liked that shirt, but it’s done, now come on, get over here,” you groan in exasperation as you sit on your bed.

“Okay, hold your horses, I’m coming,” Wanda sighs, as she walks towards your dresser to set her shirt down.

“Oh baby, you will be,” you smirk and the brunette rolls her eyes albeit with a smile.

As you watch your girlfriend take a little too long for your liking, you stand up from your bed clad in some shorts and a bra and grab her from behind, turning her around to face you to kiss her passionately.

“God, I missed you,” you whisper against her lips.

“Mmm, I missed you too baby,” Wanda mutters against your lips too, as your hands make their way down to unbutton her jeans. Trying to take them off but pulling away in frustration when you notice they’re a bit tighter than you thought.

“Okay, new rule, when you come over, wear some sweats or something that’s easy to take off, alright? These things are so tight it’s impossible to get them past your hips,” you say with a groan as you finally slide them off Wanda, “don’t get me wrong they do wonders for your ass, but right now we’re limited on time, my mom said she was just getting groceries,” you say as Wanda nods.

“Sure, yeah, okay baby, whatever you say,” the brunette says as she quickly attaches her lips to yours. Slowly guiding you towards your bed.

Once near your bed, Wanda pushes you down softly and you both climb in, your girlfriend straddling you as your hands are placed on Wanda’s ass. Things getting heated rather quickly, when suddenly your door bursts open.

“Hey Y/N! We’re back from- holy shit, I- oh my god, I’m so sorry,” a voice says, causing you and Wanda to pull apart immediately, as you grab a blanket to cover your semi-naked girlfriend.

“Yelena!” You exclaim in surprise, watching as your sister turns around and covers her eyes, “oh god,” you groan in embarrassment, “hey Yel, fuck. Could you uh, give us a second? We’ll be right down,” you rush out as your sister nods her head and walks out of your room, door slamming behind her.

“I’m sorry, did I just hear you say Yelena?” Wanda begins, “as in your sister Yelena?” Wanda states rather than questions.

You wince slightly, “yeah, my sister Yelena,” you say cautiously.

“Damn it, Y/N! This was so not how I wanted to meet one of your siblings! I-I can’t show my face here ever again,” Wanda says as she gets off your bed and begins putting her jeans on, “I’m not even walking out the front door, no, nope. Your room isn't too far off the ground, I’ll just jump out the window,” your girlfriend rambles as she opens your window, “Pietro’s an idiot, if he can do it so can I, I’m definitely more coordinated than he is,” she mumbles to herself.

“Wanda, hey,” you begin, chuckling as you see your girlfriend mumble to herself, debating if she should go out the window, the sight much more humorous as you realize she’s in just her bra and jeans. “Max!” You exclaim, as you approach the brunette and lift her off the ground, pulling her to the middle of your room, “you’re not going out the window. It’s okay,” you say as your girlfriend puts her face in her hands.

“No, it’s not,” Wanda begins, “what if she tells your parents?” The brunette says, paling slightly.

“Babe,” you begin, pulling at her hands and holding them, “babe, relax. If anything she’ll probably tell Nat just to tease me, but they won’t tell my parents, I promise. Plus, I have dirt on them too, so we can get dirty and make it even or we just drop it,” you say, shrugging as if it’s not a big deal.

“But detka, how am I supposed to meet them after this? I mean you literally ripped my shirt, and your sister, she saw me half naked, it’s so embarrassing!” Wanda exclaims in nervousness.

“I’ll lend you a hoodie and I promise, it won’t be that bad,” you say in an effort to comfort your girlfriend.

“You’re so lucky that I like you Romanoff,” your girlfriend grumbles as you hand her a hoodie.

“I like you too,” you beam, smiling widely, pulling Wanda in by the waist as you see her standing in your sweater. “Also, seeing you in my clothes is so hot and if Yelena hadn’t interrupted we’d totally be finishing what we started,” you say, peppering kisses on Wanda’s jaw and neck.

“Baby, stop,” the brunette begins, groaning softly. “What if Yelena comes back to look for us? Or worse what if it’s your parents,” Wanda questions, placing her hands on your shoulders, but making no real effort to push you off.

“I already told Yelena I’m going down so they won’t come up here, we’re good,” you say as you connect your lips to Wanda’s.

As you’re standing in the middle of your room making out with your girlfriend, your hands begin to wander and as your hands firmly squeeze Wanda’s ass the brunette pulls away abruptly as she remembers what happened mere minutes ago, “okay, we really need to stop,” she says, breathing affectedly, “let’s just get down there and get this over with,” Wanda says nervously.

Smiling slightly at your girlfriend’s nervousness you say, “Max, relax, nothing bad is going to happen. We’ve got this,” and Wanda nods, running a hand through her hair to tame it.

Grabbing the brunette’s hand, you give it a light squeeze before descending the stairs and making it to the living room where your family is at.

“Dad!” You exclaim once you’re in front of your father, letting go of Wanda’s hand as you embrace him, your girlfriend standing awkwardly to the side watching the small family reunion. “Yelena,” you smile, walking towards the blonde and hugging her as well. “Natty,” you smirk, embracing your older sister, the redhead whispering something in your ear that has you pulling back immediately, cheeks bright red. “Really Yel, you couldn’t give me five minutes to explain?” You groan, embarrassed by your sister's antics. “Whatever, anyway, guys, this is Wanda Maximoff, my girlfriend. Max, this is my dad Alexei, and my sisters Natasha and Yelena,” you say introducing Wanda with a cheesy smile, hand outstretched towards the brunette to pull her in.

Once near your family Wanda shyly waves introducing herself, “hi, Mr. Romanoff, I’m Wanda, pleasure to finally meet you,” she says, shaking your father’s hand.

“Oh wonderful,” the tall man booms, hands clapping loudly in front of him, “finally a face to the name, my Melina here has told me a lot about you. About the wonderful girl that has stolen my precious baby girl’s heart,” he says and you groan in embarrassment, blush deepening as Wanda looks at you with a beaming smile. “Pleasure to meet you too and please call me Alexei,” your father smiles, Wanda nodding before she moves on to Natasha.

“Hello Natasha, your sister has told me a lot about you, nice to finally meet you,” Wanda smiles, extending her hand once again to shake your sister’s.

“I can see why, the kid idolizes me, I’m the better Romanoff, of course she’s going to brag on my behalf,” the redhead smirks and you roll your eyes as Wanda laughs.

“Dream on red,” you say and Natasha laughs.

“Anyway, nice to meet you Wanda also you can call me Nat,” your older sister smiles as your girlfriend nods, moving down to greet your other sister, “uh, hi Yelena,” Wanda greets, coughing in embarrassment as she sticks her hand out, eyes glancing around in nervousness.

“Wanda,” Yelena responds with a smirk, shaking your girlfriend’s hand.

“So how long have you girls been together? Tell me everything, how did you two meet, have you said I love you, come on, give me all the details, spill,” your father says as he sits on the couch, elbows on his knees as his chin rests on his palms, the sight quite comical causing you to let out a chuckle.

“Well we met at school, we sat next to each other and things started progressing from there, we’ve been dating for 4 months, just a bit before you guys left for Russia,” you say before you are cut off by Yelena whispering.

“Damn, you guys move fast,” causing you to clamp your hand over her mouth as Natasha laughs.

“Uh, you know what dad, I’ll tell you all the details later, us girls are going to catch up real quick,” you say, giving your father no time to actually answer before you’re pulling your sister away.

As you make it to your backyard you pull your hand off Yelena’s mouth and say, “you guys are little shits you know that right?” Your sisters laughing at your exasperated expression.

“I’m sorry sestra, but it’s just so funny seeing you all flustered,” Yelena laughs, “you’re usually so calm and collected, it’s fun to tease you and finally have something against you,” the blonde smirks.

“What? What do you mean calm and collected, what are you even talking about?” You ask, confusion written all over your features.

“Well you know. Remember how we used to pick up girls, you'd get them every time with your game because you’d be so cool about it,” Yelena shrugs and your eyes go wide as your mouth goes agape as you turn to face your slightly angry girlfriend.

“W-what? What, no, I never picked up any girls, Yelena what the hell. Babe I promise, I didn’t pick up any girls,” you tell Wanda as she tilts her head and raises an eyebrow causing your sister to let out a loud laugh.

“No she didn’t, she really didn’t,” Yelena laughs, doubling over slightly, “but oh my god, this is so great, look at her get all weird.”

“Yeah, this is definitely going to be great,” Natasha finally joins in.

“Hey! Start shit Natty and I’ll get you when you’re with Maria and you won’t even know what hit you!” You warn as Wanda looks at all three of you.

“Hey, leave Maria out of this! It’s not my fault you brought your girlfriend here to do the nasty and got caught half naked, do better next time,” Natasha says and Yelena laughs.

“Oh yeah, keep laughing over there Giggles McGee, but when I embarrass you in front of Kate you won’t be thinking this is so funny,” you say, before a full blown argument ensues between you and your sisters.

Causing Wanda to stare at the three of you in shock.

“Okay, hey. Hey! Baby, that’s enough,” Wanda exclaims, causing you and your sisters to stop fighting immediately, “why don’t we get to know each other a bit more, yeah?” The brunette proposes as she sees you chokehold Yelena, while Natasha is on your back doing the same to you, “let’s get to know each other before you kill one another.”

You nod your head, “yeah, okay, I like the sound of that,” you say, letting go of Yelena as Nat jumps off your back, “let’s take a seat and talk,” you say and the women all nod.

“Yeah, yeah that sounds great,” Wanda nods, grabbing your hand.

As you make it to a small seating area in your backyard Yelena turns to look at Wanda with a smirk and says, “oh Wanda, welcome to the family.”

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gammacousin · 2 years

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Melina: *over the phone* “Is that my sweet Rebecca? Where is mama? Put mama on the phone.”

Rebecca: “She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

Melina: “What? Why not?”

Rebecca: “Because mommy is mad at you for picking on how she cooks.”

Natasha: *from the other room* “Becks! Is that grandma?! Hang up that phone, right now!”

#natasha romanoff #black widow #melina vostokoff #white widow #Melina #mama Melina #brucenat #marvel misquotes #misquotes

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bishopsbeloved · 3 months

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the art of falling in love (part four)

natasha romanoff x fem reader

best friend!yelena belova, aroace!yelena belova, internalised homophobia, found family trope, coming of age, angst, fluff (eventual happy ending)

read this fic on ao3!

Natalia Romanova has lived her whole life in maybes.

When she was five years old and first banished to an orphanage in a far vast snowy corner of Russia, she thought to herself, okay. Maybe this will be the place that I find my forever family. Surely no place can be worse than that which I have come from. But the other girls she lived with were taller and crueler, and almost a year passed before a certain scraggly blonde rascal stumbled into sharing a room with her. Without hesitation she began causing havoc for every single resident. Natalia liked her immediately. It was not long before the two would share a bed at night and call one another sister.

Maybe I was right, Natalia would think to herself sleepily, as she and tiny Yelena huddled together beneath a duvet to survive the cold winter nights. Maybe this is my forever family.

It only took one day for that to fall apart for her, though. It hadn’t even occurred to her that someone might adopt Yelena without her too, or vice versa. And when that happened, and Yelena was torn away, she was at a loss.

“Не волнуйся,” Yelena reassured her as she sped around their tiny bedroom, gathering her many trinkets and treasures into a bag. “It’s okay. My mama and papa, they are very lovely, they promise they will come back for you. We will be a family together, in America. A new start. Together.” She held out a pinky earnestly.

“Together,” Natalia repeated, sealing the deal.

But two years after Yelena’s departure, she began to wonder if maybe her sister had been wrong.

She still can’t remember much of the day that they finally, finally came back for her. She was eight, and you and Yelena were both seven. Of course, she didn’t know you even existed at first — not until the long journey back, gazing down at the motherland below them as they left it behind, when Yelena babbled endlessly about her new best friend she’d made in Ohio. She doesn’t remember much of that, either — the whole day felt too perfect to be real. It’s all a blur. But still to this day, proudly framed by Alexi and hung above the fireplace, are the photos he took the day she came home.

Only a week into her life in Ohio did she ask her mother if she could change her name. Natalia Romanova was too difficult for Americans to pronounce, and it didn’t feel American. It felt as though it were just another of countless things that screamed I don’t belong. Maybe it would help her feel more acclimated to her new home. And when she worded it like that, who was Melina to deny her? So Natalia Romanova became Natasha Romanoff. You barely even batted an eyelid when the news reached you, and she’d often catch herself smiling when you went out of your way to use her full name in any situation you could.

Although it feels as though she’s loved you forever, it’s true that she was wary of you at first. That fateful moment she first met you, you came tearing into her new home to spend time with her sister and she was scared you’d take her away — but you didn’t. You shared her. And as time went on you began to share parts of yourself with Nat, too.

She’ll remember the day you won her over until her dying breath. December 3 — almost six months since she first moved to Ohio, and her first birthday there. You’d stayed over the night before, as you often did even then, and in the morning you approached her with wide adoring eyes and something clasped carefully in your hands.

“Natasha,” you began, with a slight tremor in your voice, “um, it is your birthday, obviously,” you glanced over at the gaudy banners Alexi had strung proudly around the house in declaration of this fact, “and, uhm, I know we haven’t known each other super long, or anything, but, yeah,” you finished lamely, and held out your hands to her, opening them up. “I found this super cool rock. Alexi helped me clean it. It’s pink.”

It was super cool, Natasha decided. Pink had become her favourite colour as of late — ever since she’d learnt that in America it’s for girls. She looked from the sparkly rock to your earnest, hopeful face and back again, and decided then and there that she loved you. (And maybe you even loved her back.)

The nature of said love did not make itself known to her for a good few years; even before it did, she made her best efforts to dismiss it, though. She very quickly learnt just how American girls were supposed to be — which did not include bright blue hair, or a desire to kiss other girls. Within just a few days of starting public school Natasha had bleached the dye from her hair, quashed down any potential interest in Daphne from Scooby Doo, and at night would carefully practise the American way of pronouncing words in the mirror — without her gentle Russian tinge. She tacked up posters of male pop stars in her room, and began to strategically pick which boys in her class she’d be crushing on next. Maybe, just maybe, if she kept all of this up then she’d be able to fit into her surroundings the way she was somehow never able to in the orphanage.

And for the most part, she did. She found herself becoming one of the most popular girls in class. She’d discovered that actually she was very good at fitting in, as long as she paid enough attention to everyone else. And she felt good about herself — as long as she didn’t pay attention to you and Yelena, who were entirely unbothered by the social norms she adhered so much to, and seemed a whole lot better off for it. It was entirely uncool to be so close with your sister. Her annoying little sister, and her quiet lovely best friend. Yes, as long as she avoided the two of you wherever she could, she’d be fine.

That’s how the years passed, for a long time. Natasha eventually outgrew her desire to distance herself from Yelena, and she returned to the protective tendencies she had harboured for the blonde when they were so young and alone, but what she didn’t outgrow was her need to fit in. That followed her way into high school. By sophomore year she was cheer captain and everyone in school knew her name. (She wasn’t mean, though, she always made sure of that. And she made it known that if anyone were to mess with Yelena — or you, by extension, as by this point people had started referring to you as the twins — there would be consequences.) She had friends, she had boyfriends, she had invites to parties. And as long as Natasha pretended she didn’t have a massive interest in you or a mental list of your likes and dislikes, she would be fine. Probably.

When she was sixteen she realised with startling clarity that the massive interest she acted as though she didn’t have in you was love. She and two of her good friends, Sharon and Maria, were animatedly discussing whether Sharon really loved her boyfriend or not. And the way love was described, romantic love, was identical to what she felt for you (and what any idiot could tell you felt for her, as much as everyone seemed to have agreed to pretend that you didn’t). An inexplicable attraction drawing her to you, an interest in anything you were interested in (see that time she was ten and stayed up all night researching your favourite cartoon just so she could discuss it with you over breakfast the next morning), a desire to just be with you forever. That was love. She loved you.

Oh, shit.

“You’re awful quiet, Nat,” Maria commented. Natasha cleared her throat and took a sip of juice. “Anything on your mind?”

“Just that Sharon needs to dump her shitbag of a boyfriend,” she replied shortly. Maria clapped her hands together in triumph, while Sharon let out a huff of annoyance.

“That’s what I keep saying,” Maria told her proudly, as Sharon spluttered in protest. The discussion resumed and the matter was forgotten. Natasha shoved her discovery to the back of her mind, hoping and praying she could un-discover it. Maybe if she did, things would stay okay.

Try as she might, she couldn’t, but she has tried; more determined than ever to be the perfect American girl. Over dinners she pretends to be annoyed at the teasing, saying that her accent’s gone, she’s no Russian, the American agenda has got her, that she’s almost as American as you.

“Our token Yankees,” Alexi often says merrily, to this day, clapping both you and her on the back with force that makes you wince and her giggle. She’ll whine and wrinkle her nose at him (while you just sit and blush), but secretly revel in the praise that her efforts have been so fruitful.

Barely any time into this school year, her senior year, she realised that she hadn’t had a boyfriend for a suspiciously long time.

“You and James would be cute,” offered Sharon, pointing with her fork at where her good friend and fellow Slav sat across the cafeteria, laughing about something.

“Yes,” came Natasha’s thoughtful reply, “we would, wouldn’t we?”

Every single aspect of her life was coldly calculated, unfeeling, sterile. Natasha Romanoff knew what she wanted and she would obtain it. Her pursuit of Bucky Barnes was no different. He was politely reciprocal at first, and the two entered what Nat’s friends called a situationship over the coming months. It wasn’t until a Stark house party that he turned her down.

“Natasha,” he said gently, and the word was so loud despite the music that blared only a few rooms away. He only had to say that and she knew. She sighed, and sat down on the bed in defeat, only to look up in surprise at his next words.

“I don’t… I like Steve.”

Not even Natasha could understand why she started crying. But Buck was so kind, so patient, and he held her until her tears dried. When she could speak evenly again she opened her mouth and everything came flooding out. The way she felt for you and her deep, innate fear of being different.

Bucky was quiet for a few moments in contemplation. Then he said, “I’m scared, too. Me and Steve are like you and Y/N, we known each other all our lives, and it’s like, what if whatever I do or say or feel ruins that? But you gotta… it’s…” He scratched at the back of his head. “You gotta trust it’ll work out. If you love each other proper, then even if she don’t like you back, you’ll still have her. In your life. It’ll be okay, you know. You just gotta have faith.”

Of course, Natasha knew without a shadow of a doubt how hopelessly head over heels you were for her. Rejection wasn’t what she feared. But she wasn’t sure how to word that to Bucky without sounding entirely conceited, so she just nodded. After that night, though, the two were a whole lot closer, and in no time at all they established a kind of beard situation — they’d act ambiguously involved in public so that in private they could affiliate with the ones their hearts truly desired. It wasn’t as though there weren’t queer people within their school, because of course there were, but both feared for the loss of their social standing so intensely that they saw no other option.

It was Bucky who pushed Nat to kiss you at the New Year’s party.

“If it goes wrong, come find me and we’ll drink,” he shouted over the blaring music. Both of them knew it wouldn’t go wrong, though.

But she drank anyway — for luck, she told herself, downing an impressive amount in one. She was Russian, even when she pretended she was not. A perk of that was being able to handle her liquor.

The New Year’s kiss famously went swimmingly, and Nat felt so giddy the next morning that she marvelled she hadn’t done this sooner. The two of you began to sneak around, which pleased her greatly, but she felt the words you didn’t say during the silence that would sometimes descend on the two of you. Your slight twitchiness, the way you would work yourself up to say something only to dismiss it at the last second. You didn’t want to ask what are we? for fear of the probable answer — and Natasha didn’t have an answer for you, anyway. She liked the way things were now; she had a pretty girl wrapped around her finger who she could sneak around with in private, and she could simultaneously maintain the social status she’d always had in public. She was certain that if you were ever to make her pick between the two she would spiral. Eventually you seemed to take the hint, and the hopeful silences stopped.

It never really occurred to her that she wasn’t treating you well until quite a few months into your relationship — around June, after Stark’s spring break party, once Yelena had started teasing you about a mystery girl. Every time it was mentioned in front of her she would tense, but you handled it with surprising and admirable nonchalance, and her sister seemed to have no suspicion it was her that was spoken of.

Natasha came back late one night from a hangout with friends. She’d forgotten her key and, assuming everyone was asleep, decided to let herself in through the garage rather than disturb anyone. But you and Yelena were still up and enjoying a quiet night in, as the two of you often did, huddled together under blankets on the sofa in a way that would make Natasha reminisce on the way she and Yelena used to do that in the orphanage — except they had done that to survive the bitter cold, whilst the two of you did so merely to enjoy reality TV reruns. It warmed Natasha to see her baby sister happy, at least.

The noise of one Kardashian fighting another (Natasha always got them mixed up) drowned out her quiet arrival, and the two of you were mid-conversation. She made for the stairs, not really wanting nor caring to intrude, but froze as she tuned into Yelena’s next words.

“You never really mention your mystery girl anymore, anyway,” the blonde was saying. “Did something happen? I can hurt someone.”

Natasha craned her neck to catch your next words.

“Nothing happened,” you said quietly. Defeatedly. “I just… I don’t know. I don’t think she likes me as much as I like her.”

“Ah, конечно нет, impossible,” drawled Yelena. “You are adorable, утенок. Everyone likes you.”

You murmured something unintelligible, and Yelena scoffed, but Natasha didn’t need to hear any more. She crawled up the stairs as if the world were about to slip away from beneath her feet. Suddenly everything around her was so overwhelmingly real, and she realised with sickening clarity that you were real, too. She spent the rest of that night lying in her bed, unsleeping, unmoving, counting the paint strokes on the ceiling and wondering if she could’ve gone her whole life without knowing that she’s a bad person. Maybe she has.

That was probably the beginning of the end. When she looked you the next morning it was as though she was seeing you for the first time — you were quiet, you were pale, there were dark circles under your eyes. You were smaller somehow, as though something had defeated you completely. And Nat knew in that moment that she was too much of a coward to give herself to you, so the kindest thing she could do was let you go. If she was lucky then maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t lose you completely if she set you free now.

Right now it’s prom night. Seeing you dancing with Sam was one of the most gut-wrenching sights she’s ever endured, but he at least seems to make you happier than she ever did. It didn’t make her very happy to look at, though, so she convinced Buck to drop her home on his way back to Steve’s. (Prom was their first official date and, as Buck informed her with a proud grin as she left the car, it went fantastic.) Melina and Alexi are out — every other Friday is their date night, and while Yelena groans and gags at how ridiculously in love their parents are, Natasha just finds it sweet and hopes she’ll have something like that someday. But you’re the closest it’s ever come to that for her, and she’s fucked that one. Royally.

“Hi, Liho,” she opens the front door and mumbles to the cat, who is sat in the hall expectantly. His haunches rise defensively, and Nat just sighs. He is very much your cat, not hers, and in recent times he seems to have been picking up on the turmoil she’s been putting you through. “Look, man, she’s out being happy, without me. Isn’t that enough?”

Liho hisses, and stalks with his head held high out of the front door.

“Yeah, whatever, leave then,” Nat grumbles, and kicks the door shut behind him. Even through the thick oakwood she can hear the noises of annoyance he makes back at her.

She kicks off her heels and throws herself onto the sofa, and lays there for a long time. It would be nice, she thinks to herself, if she could just stay here forever, and never have to face the world again. And she does for a while, but eventually the front door slams, bringing in cold air and with it the announcement that you and Yelena are home. Nat tenses as she recognises the sounds of your crying, and leaps to her feet, sliding across the smooth wooden floors in her stockinged feet towards you.

“What’s going on?” she pants, taking in the scene. You’re cradling something dark and vaguely furry to your chest, and Yelena is fussing over it worriedly. She realises like a punch to the gut that it’s Liho you’re holding. “Holy shit, what —”

She freezes as she realises she’s the one who let him outside. Is he supposed to outside? She doesn’t know anything about this goddamn cat, he’s not hers. Shit.

“Call Alexi,” you choke out. Natasha stands still frozen in shock, so Yelena lets out a mutter of “бесполезный” and charges towards the landline herself.

“Are you— okay?” Nat tries uncertainly. “What —”

“Piss off, Nat,” you cry. Ouch. Okay, she probably deserves that.

“Sorry,” she says quietly, and steps back from you. You stand in silence for a few moments until Yelena comes skidding back out into the hall.

“He’s nearly home anyway,” she pants. “He says don’t call the vet, not until Ma has looked him, we should just stop the bleeding. It was definitely a car, probably a hit and run so he said to check the doorbell camera thingy. What is their name?”

“That is the scientific term, yes,” Natasha nods, and you make a noise that’s both a laugh and a sob. “Um, I think Dad has the app on his iPad.” Not that he knows how to use it. He’s such a comedically giant man that seeing him trying to navigate the tiny device offers her a steady stream of entertainment. (“Глупый кусок жести. Делай как я говорю!”)

“On it,” Yelena nods, and sprints off to where she last saw the device.

“I’m sorry,” Nat offers again, once her sister’s out of earshot.

“Not now, Nat,” you sigh tiredly, and you sound so broken that she just wants to scoop you up and protect you from all the evil in the world. But she’s subjected you to that evil, whether she meant to or not, and now she has to deal with the consequences.

Yelena is gone and oddly quiet for a suspiciously long time.

“You okay?” you call, cupping the cat desperately to your chest as you pad off in search of her. Unsure of what else to do, Natasha follows you, hanging behind awkwardly and making sure to give you enough space.

Yelena is stood still as anything in the kitchen, staring at the iPad propped up on the counter, rewatching one clip over and over on the security camera app. Nat can’t tell what it’s of, at first, but the exact moment you realise you let out a squeak, and squeeze Liho even closer to your chest. Only a moment later does Natasha understand what it is.

It’s from quite a while ago — the timestamp says sometime late at night in March. In the clip Nat’s car pulls up onto the driveway, with her at the wheel and you in the passenger’s seat. Once the car stops, Nat leans over and she kisses you. And you kiss back. On camera.

Liho lets out a noise of pain at how tightly you’re gripping him to you. Yelena stares blankly at the screen as the video plays over and over again.

“Lena?” you ask quietly, and when the blonde turns round her eyes are glossy. “I don’t —”

The next thing Natasha knows is a sharp pain shooting through her nose, and she steps back in shock, because there’s no way Yelena’s just hit her.

“What the fuck,” Yelena says, and there’s that scratchy sound to her voice that’s only ever there when she’s trying not to cry. “The one person who is off limits and you just couldn’t help yourself, could you?”

“Lena,” you cry out in alarm as the blonde raises her fist again. “Don’t, it wasn’t — it was an accident —”

“Oh, what,” she’s rounding on you now, “so you just slipped and fell into my sister’s —”

“No,” you plead desperately, “it wasn’t like that.”

“You were the mystery girl all along,” Yelena shouts, and presses her lips together with her eyes screwed tightly shut. “All the time you were right there. You lied to me.” She raises her fist again, but Nat is prepared this time and catches it neatly in her own.

“Don’t,” she says evenly, but she isn’t prepared for the hatred that burns in the green eyes that meet hers.

“How many months were you sneaking around behind my back?” Yelena hisses. Nat still holds her wrist tightly, so she merely turns her head to address you next. “Ты - лжец, how long have you been using me for her?”

“I wasn’t,” you plead, and whatever is shouted after that is indiscernible. After a few moments of noise the front door opens again, and Melina and Alexi stumble in, with a sense of urgency about them.

“Oh goodness, what is all this shouting, girls?” Melina asks loudly, and at the sound of her raised voice you all instinctively fall quiet. “In fact, this is not important. Where is this poor cat?”

You hold out the bundle of bandages and fur to her, face shiny with tears, and she scoops him up gently. “Will he be okay?”

“I don’t know,” she says shortly. “I will get him to the vet. I’ll call you.” She kisses your forehead, then Yelena’s, then Natasha’s on the way out and the front door slams behind her.

Yelena turns on you again with no less venom than before.

“You,” she says, “are not my family. And neither are you,” she adds to Natasha. “Do not speak to me.” She storms out of the room, and you, Nat and Alexi watch her leave, stunned.

“Well,” says Alexi with a jovial chuckle, clapping his hands and rubbing them together, “she seems a little upset, да?”

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softlymaximoff · 9 months

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Canvas for your Art

18+ ONLY MEN & MINORS DNI (blank blogs will be blocked you do not have my permission to republish my work onto any platform.

— A/N: HAPPY BDAY RIABEAR @belovaskitkat

— Summary: when your girlfriend surprises you with new art supplies for your birthday, you waste no time in testing them out on your favourite canvas.

— Characters: Soft!dom goofy Kate, Sub!Fem!reader

— Warnings: fluff, D/s dynamics (K, r - respectively), light overstim, pet names, dumbification, light pet play, orgasm denial, lmk if i've forgotten anything else!

— Word Count: 2.85k

"Kaaaaate" you groaned as your girlfriend opened the blinds, allowing the golden flecks of light to seep through the room. It was your birthday today and the two of you had been so busy with missions and briefings that no one really had time to have a wind down and celebrate the 'Tony Way' of a birthday.

"Wakeup sleepy girl, it's your birthday" she sing-songed softly as she padded across the hardwood floor with ease. A disgruntled groan slipped your lips and you heard the archer chuckle. Mornings were not it, you made that very clear.

"Come on baby, I've got plans!" she sat by your starfished state and ran her fingers through your slightly curly hair. She rolled her eyes at the way your body melted further into the mattress before rolling you over and pressing feather like kisses along your forehead.

Quiet giggles escaped your lips at the sudden yet dotting action and you finally opened your eyes. "Morning angel" Kate whispered and kissed your lips gently. "Hi" you whispered out as you kissed her back and just stared at her.

"You look nice" you commented on her minimal makeup look for the day and sat up, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes. "Nothing compared to you pretty girl" she commented right back and you blushed. "8:30 and I've already made your cheeks red" the avenger chuckled and got up from her spot, throwing a few clothing items your way.

You blushed even harder at the double meaning and huffed at the inuendo, "You're so silly Bishop" you pouted as you sat up, stretching your arms above your head. You heard a quiet 'biiiiiig stretch' next to you and it broke you out of your stretch, laughter taking over your body.

"Now you're even sillier what the heck baby!" you managed to wheeze out and slapped her arm lightly. "You stretched like Lucky! It was only appropriate! And watch those hands love" she defended and warned at the same time while the two of you got up started your morning routine. All Kate did was follow you around, occasionally dressing you up here and there and helping with your hair, but were you about to complain? Hell no.

"So what does my birthday girl want to do today? We can do presents tonight and do something this morning or during the day, or we can do them this morning and go out somewhere tonight" she played with your hands as her back was against your chest while you were sitting on the counter waiting for breakfast to cook.

"How about we do something this morning and presents tonight?" you mused and leant down, kissing the top of her head. She swayed gently between your legs and turned to look at you, "Grab your coat, were gonna go to the lake" she murmured after just looking at you with nothing but adoration in her eyes.

And so you did just that, you grabbed your coats, your shoes and Lucky. A couple of thorough room checks for safety and the two of you were on your way to the lake where you first met each other. The story was cute for you, completely ego bruising for your girlfriend.

"Lena look at them! They're so cute! OH please can we get one for the compound!" the archer was swooning over a cuddle puddle of baby ducklings and their mother roaming around the lake edge. "Kate Bishop for goodness sake! Leave the poor water chickens alone! They are paobably so sick and tired of everyone trying to steal them all day! My God Americans really are so weird, Mama Melina had pigs maybe we can play with those, theyre just...four legged muddy chickens?" the widow rolled her eyes at the commotion and fuss over these fluff balls and Kate gasped in horror.

"You take that back! I'm not weird! Pigs are ugly! At least these babies are so fluffy and cute and really just like you! Theyre short and fiesty and loud as hell but so so so cute and squishy!" Kate teased and squished the blondes cheeks. "Get off me you cytka" Yelena shrieked and swatted her hands away, groaning at the instant sensation on the apples of her cheeks.

"Your new nickname isn't Lena or Blondie anymore, its Ducky" Kate howled in laughter at the deadpan glare Yelena sent. "Count your days Katniss" she growled and lunged at her best friend, sending them both on the floor. Thw two got into a playfull tussle until something wet licked Kate's face. "Did you just LICK me?! Yelena! That was uncalled for you ass! Ew!" Kate spluttered dramatically and wiped her cheek like a maniac.

The way Yelena went to roll her eyes but remained quiet and adverted her eyes away from Kate, smirking at something behind her made the purple avenger spin around. "What?! That's so not fair!" the duo were staring at a brunette crouching at the lake's edge with a few stray ducklings at her feet. "They never come up to anyone!" Kate whispered in awe and Yelena saw something in her eyes.

She was a spy for gods sake, she knew how to read people. Kate wasnt looking at the lowkey insult from the animals, but towards you. The Duckling whisperer. She was mesmerized. Anyone could see it. "Go say hi you idiot" Yelena pushed the lovestruck archer a little in the direction and Kate froze up.

"I can't just go over there and say hi! Are you crazy?!" she panicked but the widow smirked instead. "Kate Bishop, do you not know how conversations work? And plus, I'm tired of hearing you complain about how 'Wanda said she's too old for me' 'Tasha and Maria sure seem like theyre fun, do you think they want a third' 'Wanda said she's fine with Vision, is that code for he's got no game' go and say hi or I will for you" Yelena shoved her a little harder this time and Kate went stumbling from her little safe space.

Now she was too close to you to go back to Yelena but too far to try and talk to you without yelling. With a big deep sigh, she stuck up her middle finger behind her where she heard the blonde chuckle and made her way over to you. She slowed a little when she heard your voice speak out onto the lake.

"Aw you're cute too, don't worry I'm not playing favourites, your siblings just like to steal my attention. I promise youre just as beautiful!" you spoke to these small creatures in the softest voice Kate had ever heard. Resting peacefully next to you was Mama duck, her little babies splashing in the water in front of her and running laps around you.

The closer Kate got to you the harder it was to not completely fumble. On the otherside of you was a little sketchbook, a few rough line drawings of the ducks and the lake adorned the slightly oat coloured page. Of course you were an artist! All the more reason for Kate to back out of this! You were so cool and soft spoken, she felt like you yourself belonged in an art museum. 'So beautiful' she thought.

With a final breath of encouragement, she sat down next to you gently as to not startle the ambience and you froze tentatively at the new body but what she said next made you at ease instantly. "They taste great with orange" was the only thing that made its way out of Kate's mouth and she was mortified. From then on, the lake was your favourite place to watch the archer and her scary blonde friend roam around in the early mornings of Spring.

A gentle tug on your belt loop drew your attention back to reality and you realised that 1, Lucky's leash was now in your girlfriend's hold not yours, who knows when the switch happened and 2, she brought you to the infamous spot. "How stupid" You heard her chuckle as the two of you sat down and got comfortable as Lucky went off-leash around the two of you. "It was cuteee, little baby Katie all shy and stumbly" you teased her but a playful (yet threatening) glare made you gulp.

"I still remember how beautiful you looked that day" Kate sighed in awe and pulled you close to her, your head falling on her shoulder. "Stop" you blushed and she kissed your head. "I still remember the way you would always look away when Yelena caught you staring at us" this time you actually whined at the memory. "She's scary! You can't blame me! Not when her sister is Black Widow, of course she'll scare me!" you huffed against her collarbone and she shuddered.

"Baby, Yelena isnt called Ducky for no reason! Tasha I can understand, but Lena? She's a fluff ball" Kate snickered and rolled her eyes at the obvious comparison. A small bark from Lucky broke the two out of your conversation and you couldn't believe your eyes as you sat up. A small family of ducks made their way over towards the lip of the lake and Lucky sniffed the bigger one before walking off with a happy smile, layig behind Kate in the shade.

"Hi little ones! G'mornin Mama and Papa duck" you whispered in awe as the family of 7 waddled towards your area, butts shaking off the water as the little ones followed Mama. "Still as soft as ever my angel girl" Kate murmured and pulled you in for a tender kiss. The two of you stayed in your little bubble for hours until Lucky was getting angsty and losing his concentration and ignoring commands from your girlfriend.

"Buhbye little quackpots" you smiled at the flock and they returned to their watery sanctum, one of the bigger ducks hanging around the area a little longer before following it's babies and paddling off.

A little while later and you found yourself sitting on the couch blindfolded waiting for your girlfriend to return to you. Lucky was asleep on the other sofa so there wasn't even a chance of him alerting her presence. Not a sound escaped your lips while you waited, you knew better than to disobey a command. A small shuffle to the left of you had you almost turning your head but once again, she told you to not to move and stay still.

You could feel her near you, you could head her, you could smell her perfume but nothing was said. The smirk on the archer's lips was growing with every passing second, you were always so good for her. her good little pet. She let a few more seconds pass before taking pity on you and places a few delicate things in your open hands.

She got you a palette, paint and brushes. The very paint set you had been eying for weeks. Every art store was out and you quite frankly had given up on ever finding a supplier that still had it. "Baby..." you spoke in disbelief, your face twisting from shock to awe in a matter of seconds. "Paint me" Kate grabbed your chin gently and it was only then did you notice that she was in nothing but lace panties and an oversized silky top.

You nodded dumbly scrambling to get up and grab a canvas from the art room but a gentle squeeze around your wrist stopped you. "Paint me" she spoke softly and lead your hand down to her thigh. When the two of you first started dating, Kate would always let you use her back as a canvas when you ran out at home. You nodded again and mumbled out 'water, going to need water' as you raced to the kitchen to grab a container for water and steadily walked over to the couch.

"Lie down" you gently pushed her so she was laying flat on her back and started organising your paint. "I miss your art" Kate said suddenly and you sighed a little, straddling her lap facing away from her to start on her thighs. "We both know how busy we get with work and stuff for me to actually start and finish something" you traced an outline of something and you felt your girlfriend's abs tighten underneath you. Guess she was enjoying this as much as you were.

"We need a year long vacation" she let out a humourus laugh underneath you and you had to focus so hard on the art currently forming on her leg. You hummed as you continued your painting, leaning forward occasionally for a colour or an area on her thigh and nearly jumped when gentle but deliberate hands placed themselves just under your butt.

"Kate- you're gonna make me lose focus" you warned quietly when her hands snuck into the leg holes, snapping your panties against the soft skin underneath. "That isn't my name, and you better not mess up, I wanna take a photo of it when it's done" she teased and her hands just started roaming as you tried to concentrate on her thigh.

You took a deep breath in when you realised you needed to reach for some paint again. 100% she was gonna do something while you were bent over. You mustered up all the strength you had and bent over, reaching for the paint and your hips stuttered as she ran a smooth finger over your panties, paying a little more attention to your clit.

"Please- you're gonna make me mess up" you whined when she kept her fingers where they were as you moved back to your spot atop her abs. "My good girl won't mess up, I know it, just ignore Daddy and make her thigh all pretty" Kate cooed from behind you as she slipped a finger inside your panties this time, only focusing on your little bundle of nerves.

Your hips involuntarily started grinding down on her stomach, desperate for more but a smack made them freeze instantly. "Stay still" she reprimanded and pushed that finger inside, adding another one with a smirk. You trapped your lip between your teeth and tried to continue on the painting but when she lazily circled your clit with her other hand you just about folded.

"Daddy- I can't- need more" you whimpered when she started curling them slowly. "No you don't, you need to finish your art. I told you I missed you doing it" she asnwered with fake sympathy and gently guided your hips towards her face, causing your brain to short circuit as she mumbled a 'down'. You complied easily and took a few shaky breaths in before making another attempt to paint her thigh, groaning when she used it to her advantage and slipped your panties and bottoms down to your thighs.

She removed her fingers and licked a bold stripe along your folds, sucking a particular harsh suck on your clit. "Mfhpm" you groaned as you fell into her non painted thigh. "Keep painting lovey" she mumbled against you and you whimpered and raised your hips to stop the stimulation. "Down" she commanded with much more authority this time and your hips stuttered as she pulled them onto her face. There was no way you were gonna finish this painting.

"Make it pretty baby, Daddy wants to show her friends how talted her baby is" Kate spoke lowly before pushing her tongue in your pussy, occasionally sucking. At one point you thought you were suffocating her with how hard you were pushing your hips into her face. No matter how much you tried to escape her torture, she kept you in your place and kept her pace steady. Your slick coated her lips and chin and she was still lazily eating you out. She didn't care.

"I'm n-nearly finished" you stuttered out as you reached over one more time for the final few stokes of the colour in use. Your girlfriend used that for one last opportunity to slide three fingers in and curl them on your sweet spot, completely catching you off guard. A low pornographic moan left your lips and she smirked at the sound. "You're lucky I didn't ask you do paint in silence" she hummed and took her fingers out as you finished her leg. "All done" you sat upright on her abs and looked over your shoulder.

She sat up (with you in her lap) and admired the art, a fond smile gracing her lips. "Just as beautiful as the artist" she turned you around to face her and stole your lips in a needy kiss. One of her hands snuck up towards your neck and she held your face gently before pushing it up so your neck was exposed. "Now let Daddy paint her canvas" she mumbled and started marking your neck in dark angry bruises. Safe to say, you both forgot about taking a photo of the painting and the couch had a colourful flower imprint on it the next day.

#kate bishop x reader #kate bishop #kate x reader #kate bishop x female reader #belovaskitkat #riabear!

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arlana-likes-to-write · 2 months

Text

Lightning Bug - Chapter 28

Masterlist

Warnings: usage of a gun (training), fluff, mention of past trauma

Word Count: 3.8k

You tightened the straps on your backpack as you waited for Natasha and Wanda. There was a knot forming in your stomach. They were excited to meet you, but what if you disappointed them? What if they weren’t happy with who you are? “Hey,” Wanda placed her hands on her shoulders. “Breath. Take a few deep breaths for me.” You nodded and did that. “Good,” you turned to face her. “What’s going through your head?” You sighed, biting your lip. “What’s going through your head?” You sighed, biting your head.

“What if they don’t like me?” You whispered. It seemed ridiculous to say out loud. “I’m a little nervous.” Wanda nodded.

“I was too when I first met them,” she pushed some of your hair behind your ear. “They will love you. Just be you.”

“And take everything Alexei says with a grain of salt,” Natasha rushed over to you as the doors opened and the ramp came out. Natasha told you they had to part the jet a little further away from the house because Melina doesn’t want the jet’s engine to scare the animals. You descended the ramp and hoped the walk would calm your anxiety, but it became worse. Each step you took made your heart pound faster and faster.

The property remained you of the Barton’s homestead but more rustic. There was a main house with multiple outdoor buildings. As you got closer, you could smell and hear the pigs. “There they are!” A booming voice echoed through the quiet land. It came from a man with a thick beard wearing overalls.

“Yebat’ (fuck),” Natasha mumbled and pushed you behind her. Your body tensed up as you watched the man run over to the three of you. “Alexei, no,” Natasha warned.

“Natalia, my pride and joy,” he looked at Wanda. “Wanda, hopefully, my soon-to-be daughter-in-law,” you saw the couple in front of you tense up. “Move. I’d like to see moya vnucka (my granddaughter).” You weren’t sure what that word was.

“Not with that energy,” Wanda said. “Bring it down a little, or you’ll scare her off.” The man gasped.

“I would never! I’m her dedushka (grandpa). We are destined to be side by side like in American movies,” you peeked your head from behind the couple and saw a woman walking out of the house. Her black hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and her arms were crossed against her chest. Suddenly, the man’s face was in front of yours.

“Hi,” he said. You yelped and fell to the ground, startled by his sudden appearance. “You’re so small.” He pushed past the couple and grabbed you by the arms, lifting you like you weighed nothing. “I could put you in my pocket.” The man hugged you tight. “I am your dedushka (grandpa). I can not wait to tell you all about my glory days.” The man swayed you from side to side, and your body went tense, frozen. Even Wanda and Natasha’s voice turned to white noise. You felt a pressure building that started in your chest. You had to hold it in; the charge would kill the man holding you.

“Alexei, vinz (down),” a new voice broke through the fog. “She is not a toy.” The man gently set you down, and you were shaky on your legs. The man looked apologetic, scratching the back of his head. You were sure Natasha was asking if you were okay, but your eyes stayed trained on the newest addition to the group. She grabbed hold of your chin, moving your head from side to side. “Alexei’s right. You are too small. Is Natalia not feeding you?”

“Mama,” the read head groaned. “She’s eating.”

“Not enough. Come, I’ll cook you something,” she dragged you towards the house, but you dug your feet into the ground.

“Wait,” your voice shook, and everyone’s eyes trained on you. “I need,” air couldn’t get into your lungs. “Nat,” you gasped. “Help.” Quickly, she opened her bag and pulled out a battery. She placed it in your hands and knelt in front of you. You wanted to yell at her to get back. To run because you were afraid to hurt her, but the words died on your lips. She sensed your hesitation.

“I got you, molniyenosnyy zhuk (lightning bug). Let go,” (release the energy). You slumped against Natasha, and her arms wrapped around you. “That was a big one. Take a minute, okay,” you nodded and focused on Natasha’s hand, rubbing circles on your back.

“Did I hurt anyone?” You whispered.

“No, Wanda pushed Melina and Alexei back with her powers.” Good. That was good. You stood up straighter and saw Natasha smiling at you. She pushed a few strands of your hair stuck to your forehead from sweat. You felt hot and hungry.

“Hi,” Wanda stood next to you, and you rested your head on her chest. “How are you feeling?” You huffed.

“Better,” you admitted. “Sorry, that was embarrassing.”

“I think someone else should apologize,” you turned around to see the duo walk back to you. The woman hit Alexei.

“Sorry about that. I was excited to meet you.” The man’s cheeks were flushed.

“It’s okay,” you smiled. “Hi, by the way.” you waved.

“Melina, Alexei,” Natasha placed a gentle hand on your shoulder. “This is Y/n, our daughter,” your stomach flipped at that. You loved having someone be proud enough of you to call you their daughter.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Melina smiled. “We’ve heard great things about you,” her eyes pointed at you. “I still think you are too small.”

“Mama!”

“They are so cute!” You stood on the wooden pen for the pigs and watched Alexei chase after the piglets. They wanted nothing to do with him. Natasha laughed.

“Come on, Red Guardian! Didn’t you fight Captain America and win? Catching a pig for your vnucka (granddaughter),” you giggled and watched the man’s face twist with determination. You learned vnucka, which is translated to granddaughter, and the Russian words for grandma and grandpa are dedushka and babushka. Alexei was adamant about you calling him Dedushka. Melina shoved three bowls of chowder before she thought you were ready to explore.

“I got one!” A pig was pushed into your arms, and Natasha had to catch you before you fell off the fence.

“Alexei! What have I told you about manhandling my pigs?” You heard Melina call out and missed the murderous glare Natasha sent Alexei, too distracted by the little pig in your arms. It took a while for the creature to settle in your arms, but soon it pushed against your chest for warmth.

“It’s so tiny,” you whispered, so afraid to disturb the little creature in your arms. A weird feeling bloomed in your chest. It was strange how much faith the animal had in you. The pig trusted you to hold it close and protect it. Such blind faith. It was a little ridiculous, but it reminded you of yourself. You put faith in your parents and the man from HYDRA who promised you a better life. Now you were doing it with the Avengers. Was it wise to do it again? The third time is the charm, right? “What’s got you thinking so hard?” Natasha asked, running her hand over your head. You glanced up. She was smiling. Her eyes sparkled with love; sometimes, you forgot how much she cared about you. You smiled.

“Just, uh, thinking about life,” she chuckled, kissing your forehead. You basked in the warmth she provided.

“Never change, dorogoy (sweetheart),” you looked at her confused. “After everything you’ve been through, your heart is still good.” You frowned, unsure if that was true. You protected the pig with one hand as you climbed over the pen and placed the animal on the ground. It looked confused, turned to face, and ran to bury itself between your legs. You chuckled, pushing the creature towards its family. However, the piglet ran back to you.

“What’s going on, little one?” You asked, scratching its chin. “Why don’t you want to join your friends?”

“It’s the runt,” Melina said. You glanced over at her. “The others pick on it.” You frowned and sat down. The piglet climbed onto your lap and looked up at you.

“I was a runt, too,” you spoke softly. Your hand never stopped petting it. “I think we grow up to be the strongest of the group because we have to fight every single day just to survive,” you sighed. “And that can be scary, but I promise little one, everything will turn out just fine.” You felt a little crazy speaking to an animal, but the little pig seemed to understand. It glanced at the other pigs and back to you before joining them. You smiled and stood up. Wanda and Natasha were watching you with a smile. Yeah, everything was turning out just fine.

It was a long day. With the emotional trip to Sokovia and the surprise display of power, Wanda and Y/n were taking a nap before dinner. Alexei was outside finishing the chores he promised Melina that would be done, but due to the excitement, they slipped his mind. So Natasha was left to help prepare dinner with Melina. Sometimes, Natasha had to pinch herself to remind herself this was real. That the woman chose to be here, decided to be her mother, and that the Red Room wasn’t orchestrating this. It’s not another mission. This was real. It took a while for her to trust Melina and Alexei again. Yelena was the critical factor to help mend the relationship. She knew it was Yelena’s desperate attempt to have a real family. “It looks good on you,” Melina said, standing over the sauce for the beef stroganoff. Natasha hummed in question, focusing on chopping up the spices. “Motherhood. You fall into the role naturally.”

“You sound surprised,” she glanced over her shoulder, but Melina’s back was to her.

“Not surprised at all. You are a khameleon (chameleon). You adapt. It was like that in Ohio, the Red Room, and now with the Avengers,” Natasha wasn’t sure if what Melina said was a compliment. She turned to face the older Black Widow, and Melina looked at her. “Why do you look offended?”

“I’m not sure if I should take what you said as a compliment.”

“No?” She tilted her head. “You were always sensitive to that.” Melina walked over to the cutting board she was using and took it back to the pot. “I was trying to say it’s hard for us to be mothers, people like you and me.”

“Why is it hard?” She saw Melina’s stutter as she added the freshly chopped herbs into the pot.

“Because that choice was taken away from us,” Subconsciously, Natasha placed her hand where her scar was. The serum healed all of it, but she would never forget where it was. She dropped her hand when Melina turned back around to hand her the cutting board. “But you are doing good. Does that happen often with her powers?” Natasha shook her head.

“Not since she started training with Maria,” Natasha began cleaning the dishes she no longer needed. The farmhouse needed to be equipped with a dishwasher; she preferred to do it by hand. It kept her busy.

“Is she training to be an Avenger?”

“No, I mean she could join the team if she wants, but we are focusing on helping her control her powers,” Or help her fight this new threat that was possibly coming. She would have a long chat with Vision when she got back.

“Are you and Wanda going to have more children?” Natasha felt her cheeks warm up. “I would like to have more grandchildren to spoil.”

“Mama! We just adopted her. Give us some time.” Melina chuckled and wiped her hands on a dish towel. The gentle hand of Melina on her shoulder caused Natasha’s body to go rigid, but she turned around to face her. The woman places both hands on her cheeks.

“Throughout our entire life, every choice was made for us,” her voice was so soft Natasha had to remind herself who was speaking to her. “But you chose to be that little girl’s mama, and being a mother is the greatest gift. Cherish it.” It was hard for Natasha to look past the betrayal towards Alexei and Melina. Melina was the only mother she knew since the Red Room took her biological one away. Melina was part of the system that kept hundreds of girls trapped even when she was trapped herself.

The sudden moment was interpreted by the crack of a gun going off; the duo separated immediately. “There is a pistol in the umbrella holder by the back door,” Melina said suddenly. She nodded and raced to where Melina told her. It wasn’t surprising to her that weapons were scattered around the house. Once her hand came into contact with the metal, she remembered to take a few calming breaths. The list of enemies was long and still growing. No matter who was here, no one was taking her family from her.

She kicked the back door open and expected to see the backyard filled with enemies racing towards the house or Alexei fighting them off. No. Instead, she saw Alexei and Y/n at the gun range for Widows that stayed on the farm. There was a pistol in the teen’s hand, and the gun going off two more times caused goosebumps to form on her arm.

“Alexei, what the fuck are you doing?”

You spun around to see two very angry Black Widows armed with a pistol and a rifle. Safety placed the gun down like Alexei and Maria showed you, and you ran over to Natasha. “Nat, come look!” It was enough time for her to hand the pistol to Melina before you dragged her over to the makeshift gun range. “Look how well I did!” You were proud of your grouping: two head shots and two in the shot. You looked back at Natasha and your smile. “You look upset.”

“Of course I’m upset. Melina and I thought we were being attacked,” you cringed and glanced at Melina and Alexei. The older woman was radially speaking in Russian and heard the word ‘idiot’ a few times. Suddenly, the back door of the house busted open. Wanda’s eyes were glowing red, and her magic danced on her fingers. It died down when she saw her family and no threat.

“Oh, I’m in so much trouble.” Natasha grabbed your arm and dragged you back over.

“Explain, both of you,” Melina said when Wanda jogged over. You and Alexei shared a look.

“I woke up and heard you and Natasha talking in the kitchen,” you said slowly. “I went outside to explore, and Alexei, I mean dedushka,” you saw his smile from the corner of your eye. “Saw me walking around the training area. He said you made it for the Widows that sometimes stay here,” you knew it had to do with some rehabilitation program Yelena set up, but the details were fuzzy. It took a lot of work to follow any story Alexei told. “I asked him if he could teach me how to shoot a gun.” The two Black Widows said something in Russian that was not part of your daily language lesson, but Alexei cringed. Natasha stared down the man.

“And you thought it was a good idea.”

“Her mama, babushka, and tetya (aunt) are all Black Widows. She should know her way around a gun,” it was a fair agreement to make. “She gave me very good-” he snapped his fingers. “What’s the word? When the eyes get small and sad?”

“Puppy dog eyes,” Wanda said with a smirk. Alexei pointed at the witch. “She tends to use them to get something she wants,” you opened your mouth to argue, but the witch gave you a pointed look. You thought it was best to keep your mouth shut. “I was unaware you had any form of gun training.” She said to Alexei, who gasped in offense.

“I will have you know the Red Guardian is well-versed in many weapons. Guns, knives, rocket launcher,” your eyes widened, and you looked at him, excitement bubbling in your chest. “No!” He shot you down. “Do you see how much trouble we are in?” You slowly looked back at the trio.

“On a scale of 1 -10, how much trouble am I in?” You asked, staring at the ground, unable to look at the three women. Natasha sighed.

“You will be doing dishes for the rest of our trip,” you nodded. That was fair. Gently, Natasha lifted your head, and you stared into her green eyes. “No more weapon training without telling us.”

“Sorry,” you mumbled, but the redhead kissed your forehead and hugged you. She smelt of garlic and onions.

“Scared the hell out of me, kid,” you nodded again. It wasn’t your intention, and you weren’t thinking when you asked Alexei. You felt tears form at the corner of your eyes, and she needed the hug far too soon for your liking. “Let’s see this grouping again.”

“What?” You questioned. Natasha pushed away a tear that escaped down your cheek.

“I’d like to see you shoot again. Make sure Alexei taught you correctly,” the man gasped, and it made you laugh. Before you picked up the gun, you apologized to Melina and hugged Wanda. With the short time you held a gun in your hand and shot it, it wasn’t your preferred weapon. However, with so many Black Widows in your life, you were going to keep that information to yourself.

Once the dishes were cleaned from dinner, it was another early night, but you could not sleep. Your sleep schedule was messed up with the time difference and the nap you took. So you got out of bed and walked out of the guest room. Melina had a bookshelf next to the dining room that you’ve been dying to look through. Many of the books in her collection were not in English, but you could tell they were science books. Your eyes found a photo album. Curiosity, you grabbed the album and flipped through it. Every photo was of two young girls: one blonde and one brunette. The images captured moments from Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving. “It’s not a good idea to snoop in a Black Widow’s home,” you jumped at Melina’s voice, almost dropping the album.

“It’s also not a good idea to sneak up on someone.” The Black Widow chuckled, and you put the album away, but Melina grabbed it and walked over to the dining room table. Wordlessly, you followed her and sat down.

“Do you know how I became Natalie’s and Yelena’s mama?”

“Kind of. Yelena said a mission brought all of you together.” Melina nodded; the photo album was stopped on Christmas. “I didn’t ask specifics.”

“The Red Room needed agents to act as an American family to steal some classified information,” she traced the faces of each little girl. “When the mission was over, we gave them back.”

“Why are you telling me this?” You questioned. Melina closed the album and placed her hands on top of it. She was staring intently at you, and you felt small under her gaze.

“I wasn’t the mother my girls needed,” you frowned and took her hand. You flipped it over so you could trace the lines on her palm. Her facial expressions softened at the gesture.

“Are you the mother they deserve now?”

“I do not know,” she admitted. “But I’m trying to be. Not all of us get the chance to get two,” you understood that. You were lucky that you overslept that day, which landed you in the cafe simultaneously. If you were there at your regular time, you could still be living on the streets or bouncing between shelters. What a crazy what-if. “Never take it for granted.”

“I won’t,” you promised. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to repay them.” Melina smiled softly.

“Love them as much as they love you,” the Black Widow said. “That will be more than enough.”

You were up early to help Melina work outside with the pigs and her small garden. It was hard work, but Melina filled it with stories of their time in Ohio. Even Wanda brought out breakfast and helped out. You told her that the dishes would get done after you helped Melina. You sat back on your knees and stretched your neck. Picking weeds out of the dirt was not your idea of a fun time, but it beat cleaning the pig pen or doing the dishes. The sun felt different out here compared to Iowa and New York. You liked it, and it made you think about what Natasha asked you about - living somewhere like this. Away from the hustle and bustle of the big city. A place where you could get your dog and have them run around the backyard. It was a good idea, maybe one day. “Mama, are you overworking my niece already?” Your head wiped towards the voice. Yelena and Kate were talking in the garden. You jumped to your feet and ran over to them. The couple caught you as you threw yourself at them.

“I didn’t know you were coming to visit!” You smiled.

“That’s because it was a surprise, bud.” Kate laughed.

“Did you think I would subject you to a full day of Alexei’s torment without me?” You giggled. “I heard you got into a little trouble.” You awkwardly shrugged. “Proud of you.”

“Yelena, do not corrupt my granddaughter,” the older Black Widow came over to greet the newcomers. “Kate, how are you? Is Yelena treating you well?” The archer blushed.

“Yes, Melina. I’m doing great.” The blonde’s mouth hung open slightly.

“Come, I’ll make you something.” Melina put her arm around Kate and led her to the house. “Yelena, close your mouth. You’ll eat a fly.” You used your pointer finger to close her mouth, and she slapped your hand away.

“Unbelievable,” Yelena said once her girlfriend and mother were out of earshot. “She likes the people we bring home more than her daughters.” You smiled and lopped your arms through hers. “How do you like Russia?” She asked as you both walked towards the house.

“I like it!” You said. It was the truth. “Just different than Iowa and the city.” Yelena hummed in agreement.

“It took me a while to learn that the differences we see make for a wonderful world.”

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#lightning bug #wandanat x reader #wandanat x you #wandanat x daughter!reader #wandanat x y/n #wandanat #bishlova #melina vostokoff #alexei shostakov

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