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farfromstrange · 1 year

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Foreigner's God | m.m

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Matt Murdock x avenger!OFC

Chapter thirty-four: Foreigner's God

Summary: Eliza reaches her breaking point when Fury reveals some truths to her and she snaps, pushing everyone that’s left away. She returns to old patterns of self-destructive behavior and starts to drown in her depression. Thankfully, Nick Fury isn’t all heartless. She’s forced to face her demons and realizes something crucial in the process. Maybe it’s not too late to fix what she broke.

Warnings: ANGST, blood, mentions of injury, drug use, relapse, fighting, mental illness, therapy, allusions to sexual assault, just all the warnings, allusions to smut, (shoutout to @serenitroseyy for sending me that one post about Charlie’s arms), BUT we have fluff at the end

a/n: If you make it through this chapter, there is a New Year’s surprise waiting for you at the end; all the pain will have been worth it. I don’t really know, this is very self-indulgent and I have zero regrets.

I wish you all an amazing New Year’s Eve tonight! Don’t drink too much, get yourself someone to kiss or hug or just to dance with, and celebrate that this shitty year is over (and hope that the next will be better). Thank you all for making the last quarter of 2022 so great for me, and I can’t wait to see what 2023 has in store for me/us! I can’t wait to continue this story! Have a great night and I’ll see you next year!!

Goodbye, Matthew.

Those two words marked the beginning of a very dark time. Mental illness doesn’t excuse toxic behavior, only offers an explanation. So there was no excuse for what Eliza had done. She hurt him in ways she never fathomed possible, and the parts of her that cared got swallowed by the eight-legged monster living inside her head.

She didn’t even tell her friends that she chose to be discharged. Entering her room, she dropped the duffel bag on the closest chair and took in her surroundings. She had her own bathroom, there was a gigantic window pointing out in the direction of the front lawn, a queen-size bed, a flatscreen, and even her own desk. Though she headed straight for the bed, giving in to her weak knees, and she curled up into a ball on the right side of the mattress.

There was a hammering on her door. “Eliza, open up!” Natasha called out.

She closed her eyes, trying to tune out her voice.

“We’re worried about you,” said Clint. Where had he come from?

Eliza could hear them whispering on the other side. They had all come to change her mind. Even Steve and Sam were there. It had all come down to an intervention, and she refused to let them talk down on her. She made her decision, they didn’t have any power over that.

“You know you can talk to us about anything, right?” Steve asked this time.

She simply groaned, trapping her head between the edges of her pillow. The fabric was supposed to swallow the sounds. When her friends didn’t get an answer, they gave up. She could hear them walking away, and she sighed in relief.

Though it only took another five minutes for someone else to speak up. “I’ve been where you are,” Sam said. “I’ve started shutting people out too after I came back from the war. It wasn’t pretty. Everyone always seemed to know better, and they tried to make me do things I didn’t want to do, so I pushed them away.”

Except she hadn’t been to war. She was taken by Hydra. The things that kept her up at night happened at her hand, not because she enlisted in the war. He couldn’t possibly compare their situations.

“Let me tell you this though, pushing people away doesn’t make this hole in your chest go away. Talking about it does. It’s a bit of a slippery slope, but essentially, the only way to get over PTSD is to openly talk to someone about it. And you’ve been through hell and back, you deserve to rest the most out of all of us. It’s okay for you to suffer and to want peace, but don’t push the people who love you away just because that tiny voice inside of your head keeps telling you to.”

Sam jolted in surprise when the door opened. Eliza glared straight at him, the girl he had met before entirely gone. There was not a single emotion left in her fiery eyes.

“I came here because I wanted to be alone,” she snapped, “not to be lectured by a wannabe therapist. If I wanted to go to a support group, I would have already. So take your know-it-all attitude and piss off before I call someone to remove you from my room!”

“Eliza, I-”

The wood almost broke his nose when the door slammed in his face.

She returned to her previous position on the bed. Her eyes switched to the bedside table. She wasn’t proud of it. She thought she was better, she thought she was stronger. It didn’t affect her all that much, at least not at the moment. Though after she got rid of all the tubes and IVs, she started to feel the familiar tingling in her fingertips. A hunger inside of her that didn’t seem satisfied, no matter what she did. She wasn’t hungry for sustenance. She was hungry for something else entirely.

Opioids work by interacting with the opioid receptors in your cells. When they get into your bloodstream and attach to such receptors in your brain, they muffle pain and boost feelings of pleasure. The pain relief is not that dangerous if used correctly and as prescribed. The body almost instantly responds.

When you focus on the pleasure though, sometimes it happens that the brain can’t get enough of the release, and that’s where opioids get dangerous because once you feel such pleasure, it’s hard to stop. Not when it shuts your brain down so good, you’re flying where the universe doesn’t exist. You’re in your own little world, completely numb to the outside world, and in a state of constant bliss. It’s better than sex. For a moment, you can just float and don’t have to think about anything else. Your brain is enveloped in cotton, your muscles are completely relaxed and you find yourself staring down from cloud nine, above everyone else.

That’s why a lot of doctors have stopped prescribing opioids and started using new methods of pain relief. Opioids such as Oxycodone often offer a window into the world of other drugs, especially heroin. What was once used to treat your pain suddenly turns into your only source of pleasure, and once you’re in it, those addictive drugs won’t let you go any more, no matter how hard you try. Not to mention the alcoholism that often comes with drug addiction, but not always. Mixing those two substances makes for a very toxic cocktail that should not be explored.

Eliza should have known better. Agreeing with Sophie’s treatment plan had been a bad idea. It was only going to be a small dose, she had said. There was nothing to worry about. Just until her body was strong enough to heal on its own and she could get some sleep. She had major surgery, in her case the use of morphine was more than valid, but with her history, it had been a bad idea to even suggest the idea. And she was foolish enough to agree to it.

She locked the door twice. No one should be able to come in. The shame would kick in soon enough.

As she sat on the bed now, she looked at the clear liquid inside the small bottle. In a weak moment, she had stolen it, and she already regretted that decision. Now that she had it in her hand, the temptation grew in size. She was fragile enough already. The morphine would only drag her down and slow down her recovery process. Then why couldn’t she put it down?

Addiction is a fickle thing.

They could all go to hell. Her friends, her so-called family, they could all suck it. She didn’t need them. She didn’t need anyone, she only needed to get better and then leave them behind for good.

Eliza needed to regain her strength as soon as possible or she would never escape the shackles they put on her by taking her back to SHIELD. She refused to succumb to a life of control, with little to no autonomy. She was sick and tired of being pushed around. She would pack her stuff once this was over and start anew somewhere. Someplace no one would find her, preferably. Or she would fight to the death, she hadn’t decided yet. Either way, she would finally get rid of everything that kept her tied down. She didn’t need anyone’s help, especially not those who liked to belittle her because they claimed it to be their right as her family.

She didn’t need a family. Her parents were dead. No one could replace what she had lost and never gotten when her mother died. If she was cursed, she would stand by the truth. She would accept who she was, even if it meant hurting the people around her. She couldn’t have cared less.

Instead of sleeping, she walked laps around her room until she collapsed on her bed. The next morning, she jumped head-first into training. Muscle-building exercises paired with slow walks on the treadmill; she worked until her legs were shaking and she had to take a break because her incision site started to set itself on fire. When her trainer suggested they should call it a day, she burst his bubble.

“I can keep going,” she insisted.

By the end of the first day, she was almost entirely stable on her feet. The wound had progressed healing, Sophie told her, and chances that her stitches would be removed soon were high.

She only trained harder from then on.

Against her trainer’s recommendation, she snuck into the ring one night. With bandaged hands, she started beating the punching bag raw. The only thing she wasn’t allowed to do was strain her torso too much. She felt better though, so she decided she had been patient long enough.

The first few hits went over well. She grew more confident, putting more force behind her punches. The leather of the bag burned perfectly against her wrapped skin. The sharp pressure against her knuckles was all she could focus on. She wanted more of that sweet pain. It managed to distract her from everything else, and the world stopped spinning for just a minute.

She barely felt the blood that started to drench the bandages or the way the metal chain attached to the bag squeaked louder with every hit. The first few cracks in the ceiling had already formed. Eliza was trapped in a haze, only focused on hitting her target, imagining Viktor’s face. All she could see was him and the man she killed, then Ivan and his gun, and her mind instantly went back to Viktor. The pictures wouldn’t stop flashing. Her mother, her father, Hydra, everything followed in a series of short impulses.

The chain broke apart, some of the drywall following suit as the punching bag soared across the room and hit the ground. She cried out, the pain cutting her abdomen apart once more.

She bowed over, holding the bandage around her bare stomach. A red stain had formed, matching the blood covering her knuckles. She looked down at her covered hands, and her mind flashed back to the same hallway in the White Room as she cut the stranger’s throat. The broken knuckles reminded her of her failed attempt to kill Viktor, and seeing her abdomen bleed only pushed the near-death experience to the front lines.

“What did that bag ever do to you?” the female voice piped up behind her.

She grunted, applying more pressure to the wound to get the bleeding and the heavy pulsating to stop.

Maria stepped around the corner, eyeing her exhausted frame. “You’re bleeding,” she said and pointed to the blood-soaked bandage. Perhaps it looked worse than it was. “I’m not sure you’re supposed to even be in here.”

“What do you want?” Eliza asked through gritted teeth. “Did Fury send you? Because I don’t want to talk to him.”

“I actually just came because Natasha told me that you haven’t come to see them in two days, and every time they tried to make advances, you pushed them away.”

“Oh great, she’s snitching on me now.”

“And Matt left.”

“Yeah, he did that. So what? He’s a grown man. He can do whatever he wants.” Her breath came short and labored. Sweat ran down her face, covering her neck in a thin layer. She wiped over the wet skin with her bloody hands, leaving a trail behind.

Maria walked over to clean up the punching bag, then returned to Eliza who had backed up into the wall and leaned against it. She could barely keep herself upright.

“I think you might have popped some of your stitches,” she stated.

“Happens,” Eliza said.

“How about a deal?”

She raised her eyebrows. “A deal? What deal?”

“You get that wound checked out and I will convince Doctor Michaels to allow me to train you from here on. I will get you back on your feet in just a couple of days,” she said.

“I feel like there’s a catch somewhere in there.”

Maria chuckled. “I do have a condition of my own. Something you can do for me.”

“Let me guess,” she asked, “Fury wants to see me?”

“Yeah.”

“That was so predictable. The answer is no.”

“Think about it. No more physical therapy.” The offer sounded lucrative, she had to admit. “You’ll improve your combat skills and heal much faster if you enjoy what you’re doing. And, you know, I will let you take out your anger on as many punching bags as you want.”

“It’s just one conversation?” Eliza questioned as she thought about it. “And then you’ll train me?”

“He just wants to talk,” she said.

She wished she had something to punch into. “Fuck it,” she grumbled to herself. “We have a deal.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, I’m in. Congratulations! You won’t lose your job just yet. Then again, you can always crawl back to Tony if being a double agent for SHIELD doesn’t work out.”

Maria scoffed, and the relieved glint in her eyes turned into a mischievous one. “I’m not gonna go easy on you, you realize that, right?”

Eliza matched her smirk. “I’m counting on it,” she said.

She knocked on the door of the conference room early in the morning.

Fury stood at the huge window, looking out at the field of grass before the complex. She didn’t wait for his permission to enter, she simply walked in.

She hadn’t been outside for so long, she forgot what nature looked like. The sun stood high in the sky, and the flowers in the garden were blooming.

She pressed a hand to her freshly stitched wound. Sophie had been anything but happy, but Maria talked her out of being admitted again. There was something incredibly convincing about that woman. Perhaps her years of working for SHIELD had turned her into a master manipulator, or her looks did it for her. Either way, Eliza was glad that she settled it for her.

“Nice weather we’re having,” she said, her voice bitter.

Fury chuckled. “I was hoping you’d come,” he answered.

“Hill made a very convincing argument. I didn’t do it for you, I did it for myself. Just so we’re clear.”

He hummed, moving from the window to the conference table only momentarily to pick up the paper cup. He handed it to her. “Coffee?”

She ground her teeth. He wasn’t playing fair. She took him up on his offer, more than glad to taste the sweet yet bitter liquid on her tongue again. The cappuccino was sweet enough to cause her diabetes, her favorite way to drink it.

“So, what’s this blackmail about?” she asked. “What could be so important that you asked me here?”

He surprised her when he said, “I’m glad you’re okay.” It was as much sentiment as he was capable of.

She gasped in surprise. “Is that affection that I sense?”

“You know, the surgeons were ready to give up on you. After thirty minutes, they said, the brain would suffer significant damage. Still, I told them not to lose you because I- we didn’t want to lose you just yet. I gambled. I was afraid you wouldn’t make it, turn into a vegetable, but it worked. You’re alive.”

“Hm, didn’t see that coming,” she said, but she had been confronted with worse truths.

If she had died, a lot of things could have been prevented, but Fury made it sound like he wanted her to survive (for whatever reason) and she couldn’t deny that it was nice to hear he cared enough to intervene. She couldn’t be mad at him for that, only for putting her on radio silence for so long, she believed he wasn’t exactly real.

Eliza took another sip from her coffee. “As surprised as I am to hear that, I’ll take it. You saved my life. Thank you, I suppose that’s the correct answer.”

“The correct answer?” He raised his one good eyebrow.

“Do I get extra points if I act as if I care? Is that, like, a thing now?”

“No, not at all.” He was the king of not caring or pretending to, at least. “I’m just surprised. What happened to you?”

“Life,” she stated. “Or, technically, it was death and then life because I survived.”

“You wanted me to let you die?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

“Well, I didn’t ask you here to discuss the drama you caused,” he said. Finally, the careless Fury was back. Always focused on one thing only, work.

He pulled a file from the inside of his leather coat. She took it. Her relationship with strange files wasn’t exactly a great one.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“It’s the official report on the Hydra situation,” he told her. “I thought you’d like to know that we destroyed all that was left. We apprehended Viktor and your fugitive status has officially been erased. You’re not gonna have to stand trial when you get out of here.”

“That’s the least you could do.”

“Read it.”

“I know what happened. Natasha told me.”

“I’m not sure she told you everything. Romanoff likes to protect you. I don’t. I strongly believe you’re more than capable of dealing with bad news yourself. You’re not a child anymore.”

He was right. She wanted to be mad at him, but it was hard to hate him when he said things that made her feel better. He understood, which was something her life lacked for the past couple of days; people who understood where she was coming from, or what she wanted.

She didn’t want to be wrapped in a bubble and protected. It was the last thing she needed. She swore she wouldn’t allow herself to be lied to anymore. If what Nick suggested was true, Natasha had lied to her again, and the truth was in the file. The situation seemed all too familiar, reigniting the endless rage in her stomach.

She moved over to the conference table, placing the file down on the tabletop. Eliza opened it, not sure what to expect. The pictures didn’t matter, and neither did the report on how they burned the place to the ground. That much, she was told.

What she wasn’t told, however, was that there had been someone else present in the compound at the time, and he was responsible for the first set of explosions. It was sorted in Natasha’s report of events.

She growled. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. Is this real?” She looked at Fury.

“We found the devices he used in the ashes. He planned to get you out of there. He was ready to destroy Hydra from the inside, and I suppose he succeeded. We found an unidentified set of remains in the ruins,” he said.

Eliza flipped the page. “DNA is a match.”

“Your father died to help you take down Hydra.”

“How did he even get out in the first place?”

“The lockdown gave him a short window to break out. He came prepared. I believe he knew you’d pull something like this, but played along anyway.”

His brutal honesty became too much to bear.

She swooped the file off the table, slapping her hands down. “I knew it,” she muttered.

“If we had known, we would have pulled him out of there, but after what Natasha told me…” Fury sighed. “He chose to die. He would’ve done anything to save your life. That’s why I told them to save you. His attempts would’ve been for nothing if you’d died.”

“No,” Eliza snapped around to face him, “you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to play the good guy. You were part of this conspiracy too. You could’ve told me the second I woke up, but you didn’t even bother to see me,” she said. “That’s cowardice right there, and I refuse to be belittled anymore. I’m done! I thought you were my family, but all you’ve done since I came here seven years ago was lie to me about my heritage, my life, my past, and now even the death of the only blood-related family I had left. I can’t do this anymore. Just tell me, does Maria know?”

He shook his head. “And I’m not saying this to protect her. She has no idea,” he said.

“Because she would have told me if she knew?”

“Yes.”

“At least someone with the guts to tell the truth. You know what?” Eliza walked over to the scattered documents. She scrambled them together, put them into the file, and then tore them apart. She ripped them right down the middle, then again at the edges. “Fuck this, and especially fuck you!”

“Eliza, would you just let me explain?”

“There is nothing to explain,” she said. “Maria is going to help me get better and then I’m out of here. I’ve been lied to enough for a lifetime, thank you very much.”

She was delusional to ever think her life would take a turn for the better.

Eliza found Natasha and the others in the lounge. They camped out there most of the time, hoping they’d run into her and get a word in. She usually avoided them, but she’d had enough.

She stormed in, almost kicking down the door. The look in her eyes left no space for speculation. Her thoughts were written all over her face.

Natasha opened her mouth, but she raised her finger. “Whatever you’re about to say, save it,” she said. “I’m not sure what’s true and what’s a lie anymore, so just don’t.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Steve.

“Wow!” She laughed. “All this and you still have the guts to act clueless. That’s remarkable, really. To make me believe you’re in my court and that I can trust you only for you to break that trust time and time again. Especially you,” she turned to Natasha, “I thought you were my sister,” she said.

Natasha gawked at her. “No, I am,” she insisted. “I told you, I would never lie to you again. What’s this about?”

The audacity. Eliza expected her to deny it, but the act they all put on was remarkably pathetic and it made the bomb inside of her explode.

“Are you just in denial or did you really think I wouldn’t find out? Do you think I’m fucking stupid, delusional or perhaps even completely fucked in the head? What is it with you and all this lying to protect me? You think I’m so mentally fucked up that you can’t even tell me the truth about what happened back at the White Room?”

Clint sighed. It was a knowing sigh. He knew too, and he didn’t care to tell her. Steve lowered his head and Sam stared out of the window. Natasha was the only one who met her eye sternly.

“Whatever you think you found out,” she prompted.

Eliza cut her off immediately, “Don’t act all innocent now. It won’t work. I refuse to buy any of the shit you’re trying to sell to me.”

“I’m serious, I can explain if you’d just let me. There is a reason I kept this from you.”

“No. My father was there to help me!” she snapped. “He was there and he knew he was going to die. You saw him, you talked to him, and you told everyone about this but me. He died, Natasha! He was the only parent I had left and he died to help me. He tore them apart from the inside, quite literally, and sacrificed himself in the process. He did that, not me! And you didn’t even think to tell me. I mean, I sold him out. I almost got him killed. The least you could have done is tell me that he made the choice to help me, not hate me. What kind of sister does that? What kind of sister lies to the person she claims to love over and over again, betraying my trust like it means nothing, like I’m just a child who needs protection from the monsters in the closet?”

“Eliza, please… I can explain.”

“You made me believe I was an orphan and when I finally thought that I wasn’t entirely alone in this world, my father died to protect me, and you knew and didn’t even think to tell me. Congratulations, you no longer have to lie about the orphan thing. My parents are all dead. I have no grandparents, so siblings, not even an aunt or an uncle; I have nothing. I’m officially alone.”

“You’re not alone, you never were,” Clint cut in.

“No, I was!” Her voice reverberated in the small room. “I still am! Everyone who’s ever been in my corner has betrayed me. And the one person who’s ever truly loved me left because I told him to. I was never not alone. I grew up alone and it seems like I’m doomed to be alone for the rest of my goddamn life.”

“Eliza,” Steve said, and his tone sounded almost warning.

“Sam,” she said, not even thinking about stopping.

The man turned from the window, his shoulders slack.

“Nice speech you gave me. Was any of it real, when you told me not to push people away while knowing a very vital secret about my life that not even I knew?”

“Now hold on,” he said, “I meant what I said. We were just trying to protect you. I’ve been trying to do what’s right, and I strongly believe that not telling you was the wishes choice. That’s not Natasha’s fault. If anything, you should hate all of us.”

“You’re lucky that I already do hate all of you. And I thought you were my family.”

Natasha scoffed. “But we still are,” she said.

Eliza twirled around, her dead eyes glaring daggers into the woman she no longer recognized. “Am I talking to you, Natasha?” She cocked her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Okay, listen here, little Miss,” Clint stepped forward, ever the condescending father and he said, “You can be mad at us, but you’re walking on thin ice here. We deserve a little respect for all the shit we had to put up with. We’re older and more experienced than you. You have no right to talk down on us like that.”

She laughed straight in his face. “The shit you had to put up with?” she spat. “That’s funny considering I’m the one who has to constantly put up with your shit. Your lies and your pretenses and everything else you got going on to make me believe my life is one thing when it’s actually another,” she said. “I’m sorry that I was such a burden to you, but I’ve never asked you to care, so it’s kinda your fault we’re in this position. I will not be respectful,” she came dangerously close, “Because you’ve lost all of my respect. Older or not, I don’t have to respect you when I can’t even trust you anymore. And I’m not a kid, so don’t treat me like one of your children.”

“But you are one of my children,” he told her. “That hasn’t changed.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, do you want all the Christmas gifts back, would that make it easier to get the fucking hint? That means you’re no longer my family. You’re nothing. You’re not my father and you’re not my friend. You’re strangers. I don’t fucking recognize you anymore. In my eyes, all that you are right now is pathetic.”

Natasha stared at her. She wasn’t sure if it was fear in her eyes or if she was just shocked she had turned into this. Whatever this was. Eliza wasn’t sure, exactly, but she didn’t lose another thought about it. Fighting the inevitable was useless anyway.

She gasped softly, “Eliza.”

“Look,” Steve tried his best to keep them from hitting each other, “maybe we should all just calm down before we say things that we don’t mean.”

“I meant every word of what I said,” Eliza retorted.

“You can’t possibly mean all of that,” Sam said.

Clint gritted his teeth. “I think she does.”

"Damn, right I do. And I think it’s best if you pack your things and leave. Who knows when the authorities will start to pick up on your location? And you know, I don’t want to see your faces around here ever again,” she said. “I am done with you, with all of this, and once I’m back on my feet, I will move far away from here. The Eliza you knew is gone and I’m tired of pretending that that’s not the case. If leaving is all it takes to get away from a family that claims to care about me but then continues to lie to me about things that I had every right to know about, I will gladly go into exile for the rest of my life.“

Eliza pushed the door open. Her name was uttered in many different volumes, and she was urged back into the room to talk, to calm down, to have a proper conversation, but she only shut the door in their faces.

There was only one more hurdle to jump over and then she could close this chapter for good.

The pain was all-consuming. It felt as if she was wounded deep inside, something, not even a bandaid could fix. She asked herself if it was her fault. If she brought the world to turn against her. It had to be. People don’t change this fast. She judged her friends to be good people. Herself, that was another story. There was no goodness in her heart, Viktor was right.

There seemed to be only one way to remove this hot knife that cut through her solar plexus.

No one would care.

Back in her room, she reached into the bedside drawer. The bottle came with a small syringe; she wasn’t a complete fool. She tied the makeshift tourniquet just above the crook of her elbow, causing the blue vein to pop. She filled the syringe with only a small dose, enough to do the trick. The thin needle penetrated her skin sharply, reaching into the vein underneath.

Eliza didn’t waste time pushing all the way down, the clear liquid now flooding her bloodstream. Tossing the syringe, tourniquet, and bottle back into the drawer, she fell back on the bed.

Thirty minutes passed by. During that time, she stared at the ceiling. A couple of weeks ago, she would have cursed herself for this decision and run in a panic to the nearest doctor. But she was already so numb, all she could do was succumb to the sweet voice calling out for her. She took the invisible hand, allowing the voice to drag her into dreamland.

As soon as the dose hit, she questioned why she had even stopped in the first place.

The world went quiet. She floated in the safety of the white cloud that carried her into what she supposed was heaven. A paradise of nothing. There was no pain where she ended up, only relief and ecstasy. The pleasure caressed her skin in all the right places. She could breathe again.

She turned her head to the side to find the familiar pair of brown eyes staring into hers. Her lip twitched into a smile. He wasn’t real. She could wave her hand through his body and the particular part would dissolve into smoke.

“This is my bubble,” she whispered.

“It could be ours,” he whispered back.

“You’re not real.”

“I could be.”

“I’m trying to move on, but you’re always there. Why?”

“I don’t know, you tell me.”

She waved her hand through him one last time, allowing Matt to dissolve and return to her state of mindlessness. Her eyelids dropped. Sleep called for her. She was tired, and her body completely relaxed against the mattress. She couldn’t move. She wanted to stay on this cloud forever.

The stars offered her a blanket and she said yes. The universe lulled her into a deep sleep, one void of dreams and especially, void of nightmares and Matt Murdock. She slept as she had never slept before, completely knocked out while floating in the starry night. Almost like Aladdin had taken her away on his magic carpet and they were singing A Whole New World as a thank you to the universe.

It was her final lullaby.

The hard knocking on her door disrupted her short-lived euphoria. Or, it hadn’t been short-lived. She had been asleep for a good amount of time, hours on end, almost as if she was dead.

Her eyes fluttered open. She regretted not closing the curtains. She already felt the headache coming on.

The hammering grew louder. “Eliza, open your fucking door before I kick it down!” Maria shouted from the other side.

Her eyes fell on the clock. Oh, shit. She had slept for most of the day. It was around one pm. She shot up, scrambling to her feet, ignoring the dizziness or the shaking of her limbs, or the way her mouth had dried. All that mattered was getting Maria off her ass so she wouldn’t call someone to drag her out of her room or do it herself.

She opened the door, staring at the brunette woman with wide eyes. “What?” she snapped.

“Where the hell have you been? We were supposed to meet at eight this morning! I thought you were dead. I even tried to call you.”

“Uh, yeah, I’ve been sleeping. Sorry, I must’ve forgotten to set an alarm.“

She narrowed her eyes. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Oh, I’m great,” she lied.

“You look like shit.”

“Then stop looking.”

Her nostrils flared. “Ten minutes,” Maria said. “If you don’t show them, I will drag you back into the hospital myself.”

She closed the door. That was close.

Eliza stormed into the bathroom, emptying her guts in the toilet. Cold shivers rippled through her body. Her fingers had gone numb. She gagged again, releasing another disgusting wave of vomit. She felt better after that, though the pressing need to reach into the drawer again grew with each passing second. Even as she got dressed, her eyes lingered there.

She taped a bandaid over the injection point on her arm. She wasn’t sure how to explain it, but she would find a way. This wasn’t her first rodeo. Perhaps that was why she dealt with it so well, the sudden drop after the high. She was used to it.

As it turned out, Maria was a harsh trainer. She worked Eliza down to the bone. Though whatever she did, it worked. Two days after they started training together, Sophie removed her stitches. The incision site had fully healed, and she was only getting stronger every day.

Maria forced her to do cardio until her legs gave out, and she unleashed her anger on several punching bags until her arms went numb.

When she came home after a particularly hard day though, Fury burst her bubble. He sat on her bed, fiddling with the small bottle who had significantly shrunken in size since she first pulled it out of the drawer.

Her heart dropped to her stomach and she swallowed. “You’re not supposed to be in here,” she said.

“Hill told me she was worried about you,” he ignored her statement. “She said you’ve been lashing out more than usual, you’re constantly late or a no-show and you refuse to talk about why you look like absolute shit all the fucking time, and it’s not because of genetics.”

“Oh, please. Lashing out? I’m only lashing out at the punching bags. And so what, I’m late? Happens to the best of us. Maria has to stop acting like a fucking helicopter mom. It’s getting ridiculous. Can’t get what she wants so she snitches to daddy.” Eliza scoffed. “That woman really has the audacity to act clueless around me and then go behind my back. Why does everyone keep doing that?” she said. “Is there a sign on my face that just begs to be lied to or what is it?”

“Your attitude has reached a point where even Hill wonders what’s wrong with you, and she knows all about attitude.” Fury leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. His eye looked even darker in the dim light of the ceiling lamp. “She also said you’ve lost weight,” he said, “and gained a lot of muscle. You haven’t been eating, or at least that’s what it looks like. Or you’re throwing up everything. You’re pale, shaking and your punches have started to waver…”

“Your point?”

“I had my suspicions,” he stated, shaking the bottle. “I had to find viable proof before I confronted you. That and I wanted to see for myself – your pupils are wider than the fucking moon, don’t even try to talk yourself out of it. You’re fucking high.”

She straightened her shoulders. “That’s just there for symbolism,” Eliza argued. “It means nothing. You can take it away, I don’t care.”

She did care, but she was too proud to admit it. He had no right to invade her privacy like that, and perhaps it was the light causing her pupils to dilate. She told herself she wasn’t high even though she knew better. She knew what she was and sober wouldn’t be a word she would have used to describe herself either.

“Symbolism?” Fury asked.

“Yes.” She went to reach for the bottle. “Symbolism,” she said.

Shooting up had become a routine since she started training. She had to admit, she yelled at Maria more often than not, and the ceiling had taken a toll from the punching bags she destroyed, but she had it under control.

He placed the bottle down on the nightstand. Instead, he offered her a plastic cup.

“If it’s just symbolism, you won’t have a problem with peeing in this cup.”

She frowned. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously.”

“I’m not peeing in the cup.”

“Pee. In. The. Cup.”

Eliza groaned loudly. “No,” she insisted.

“You have something to hide?”

“No, I just don’t like being told what to do. I’m not doing a drug test. I’ve got it under control.”

“Like you had it under control three years ago?” he challenged.

“That was different.”

“Was it though?”

She huffed.

“Pee in the cup or I’m taking you back to the hospital.”

“Fine!” She took the cup from him.

He wasn’t going to like the results.

She ignored the obvious signs of withdrawal, the shaking, the throwing up, and the itching of her skin. Instead, she spent every living second in the training room. She convinced Maria to let her work with the holograms. The last time, she never made it further than taking down six of the synthetic men. She planned to break the record.

She needed to kill something, even if it was just a holographic person. The thrill made the ache in her bones more bearable.

Eliza fought the eight men off with just her fists and a stick, one that was about half the size of her. She flipped about the room as if she had never gotten hurt in the first place. Her hits were calculated and directed at the hologram’s jugular. She dodged their weapons and used her own to trap them, before throwing them over her shoulders. The last one was met with the stake right through his heart, and then that was it.

She took them all out in four minutes, but as she knelt on the ground, her chest heaving and sweat coating her entire body, she realized she needed more. If she couldn’t have the one thing she was addicted to, she had to divert her attention to something else. The fight caused her momentary control over her life, and it felt victorious. Having full control over everything around her. The feeling sustained her.

Maria stood on the sidelines, watching her intently. Her lip curled up into a proud smile. “You outdid yourself,” she said.

“That wasn’t good,” Eliza stated.

“You’re right, it was excellent.”

“No, I can do better than that. Run the simulation again.”

“Eliza, you’re done. You’ve reached full capacity, that means you’re back to a hundred percent. You made it.”

“Great, let’s go again. And make it ten this time,” she said. “In fact, give me everything this program has to offer. I’m not stopping until I’ve reached two hundred percent.”

She gave in only because she knew the girl needed it. With a sigh, she reset the simulation, changed the settings, and restarted it.

Eliza managed to win against the holograms two more times before she fell to her knees, completely spent. The lack of nutrition started to catch up to her. She downed an entire water bottle in one big gulp, but it wasn’t enough to improve her circulation.

Maria had long left her when she returned to the training grounds, setting up a new punching bag. Leaning her forehead against the cold leather, she took a deep breath. She was back to full capacity, which meant her body healed successfully. She could move out if she wanted to.

She landed the first hit.

For days, she worked herself to the bone so she could leave. Still, she felt weaker than before she was shot. She felt less worthy. Nothing she did seemed enough. She couldn’t satisfy the monster in her head, no matter what she did, no matter how many times she won. She was still pretty much worthless.

Her fists rained down on the punching bag, soon causing the hook to squeak. Why was she like this? She pushed all of her friends away, pushed Matt away, and she relapsed. She made one bad choice after another and her first response was to hit something instead of stopping for just a moment and thinking, “Hey, maybe something is wrong with me and I should get some help.” Deep down, she knew that it was time to face her demons. She knew that this was no way to live. Punishing herself for something that wasn’t even her fault. Listening to her mind degrading her and forcing her to do things she swore herself she would never do.

The only reason she decided to take drugs again was that the excruciating ache in her chest wouldn’t stop. Her soul was hurting and she didn’t know how else to stop it. She had never felt this useless before. All eyes were on her, and she could hear them talking. She could hear them talking behind her back, blaming her for everything, and they all agreed that she was the problem. She was at fault for every bad thing that went wrong in her life. There was no one else to blame, so she kept punishing herself, pushing beyond her limits until she was aching and bleeding on the floor. Only then did she stop. Anything to stop thinking about the hole that had been torn through her soul. She ruined her own life in the span of only a few days, which was remarkable, but it still hurt.

Yes, it hurt. She felt it everywhere, in every inch of her body. No matter how hard she trained, she wouldn’t stop feeling weak, not if she continued running herself dry like this. But her head wouldn’t allow her to stop. If anything, it kept screaming at her to continue. She wasn’t in control. She was a slave to the monster dictating her life. She hadn’t even made those choices consciously, she just wanted this pain to stop. Being alone seemed like the only way to stop causing damage, but in the aftermath, her heart shattered and she realized she had caused more damage to herself than anything else.

The bag flew off its hinges. She expected that to happen. Her knuckles were once again bloody, though she had foregone the bandages this time. She wanted to feel the full force of her hits breaking through her skin, making her suffer some more. The pain was an easy way for her to forget about temptation and overshadow whatever was broken inside of her.

She needed help, but she couldn’t possibly admit it to herself without the monster starting a war inside of her head.

“I should sue you for the holes in the ceiling,” Fury piped up behind her.

Eliza was busy cleaning her knuckles with the disinfectant she left behind.

“I think you know why I’m here.”

“Is it because I’m the poor little drug addict who stole from the hospital?” she condescended. “Because if so, I don’t want to hear it.”

“Well, your drug test did show traces of morphine in your blood. You were high. I was right.”

“That’s unfortunate.” She hissed when the cotton swab rubbed over a particularly deep cut. “What’re you gonna do? Admit me to the mental hospital? Sue me for theft? Send me to a home that doesn’t exist anymore? Please,” Eliza scoffed, “You can’t hurt me. Not anymore.”

You can’t hurt someone who doesn’t feel anything besides physical pain. Her soul had long stopped feeling anything other than unbridled rage.

“I don’t plan on punishing you,” he stated.

She laughed. “Ha! That’s a new one.”

“I want you to get better.”

“Haven’t you heard,” she told him, “I’m back at full capacity.”

“Yes, I heard.” Fury stepped forward, his hands so often crossed behind his back. “But that’s Hill’s physical assessment. Physically, you’re healthier than ever. Mentally? I beg to differ.”

Eliza snapped around. “What do you care? You never do. You’re as emotionless as they come. Why do you care about me, all of a sudden? That’s pathetic, Fury. I thought you knew better. I thought you were better, not weaker.”

“That right there proves me right in my suspicions that you need help,” he answered rather calmly. For him, that was new. He had never reacted like this before. She expected him to yell, but it never came.

She hit her fist against her forehead to stop the hammering inside her skull. “Fuck you!” she said. “You don’t know shit about me. You’re a fucking fool, that’s what you are. You can’t possibly think that I’m gonna listen to anything you have to say.”

“You’re traumatized, I think that’s pretty clear. You relapsed, that’s clear too. Now you’re training until you’re bloody and bruised just so you won’t have to face your emotions and relapse again. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’ve gone out of your goddamn mind, but this is withdrawal talking. Everyone deals with it differently and I refuse to accept that you’ve turned into an asshole,” he said.

“I’m not in withdrawal. I’m fine. I told you, I had it under control. You see I’m still standing, so you can’t deny that I dealt with it just fine. I am fine.”

“Jesus fucking Christ! You’re not fine!”

She flinched back when he yelled. Finally, she thought, but it also felt worse than the thrill she expected to feel at the prospect of making him angry. This wasn’t anger, he was worried.

“You need help, Bennett, and I’m not standing by and continue watching you work yourself to death,” said Fury. “I’m not doing it, so you better pull your head out of your ass and do something about it before it’s too late.”

Eliza tightened the bandage around her mangled hand. “Don’t worry, I will be out of your hair by sundown,” she retorted.

His large hand grabbed her bicep, pulling her back and therefore stopping her from leaving. Running had become her favorite thing to do, and he was done entertaining her. Something resembling worry filled his eye, and his lip turned downward in disapproval.

Her eyes darkened. “Let me go, Nick.”

“If you want to leave, we need to get some paperwork done first.”

“What paperwork?” she asked. “An NDA?”

He nodded.

“Oh, my…” she shook free of his hold. “Fine! I will sign your stupid NDA. As long as you leave me alone after that, I don’t give a single fuck about what I have to sign or not sign.”

“Conference room,” he told her plainly, “Five minutes. Take a goddamn shower before that.”

“Fuck you, too.”

Eliza headed for the conference room after a much needed shower, her bags already packed inside her room. She didn’t even knock this time, she just stomped in with her pen at the ready.

Fury was nowhere to be found. She looked around, searching for his face, but he was gone. Instead, her eyes fell on the familiar face sitting at the head of the table. The door shut behind her.

“What is this?” she asked. “An intervention?”

“Interventions usually require more than one person,” the woman answered. She had her notebook in front of her, legs crossed and her fingers intertwined before her on the Mahagoni. “No, I’m here for you.”

“Fuck this!”

She attempted to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. Someone locked it from the outside, trapping her inside for the unforeseeable future.

Frustrated beyond compare, Eliza kicked the wall. This couldn’t be happening.

Mrs. Darcy didn’t appear to be moved by her outburst. She kept her calm, watching her patient intently as she started pacing around the room. Not a word was shared between them until the therapist chose to break the silence.

“I suppose you have a faint idea why I’m here,” she said.

“Yeah, because everyone here seems to think I’m fucked in the head,” Eliza bit back. “Which I’m not, by the way. It’s just become a trend to silently accuse me of that, so…”

“Oh, so you don’t think there is something wrong with you?”

“Oh, my God. I honestly don’t know why they brought you here, out of all people. They could have chosen any other therapist, but it just had to be you. Why? Because that’s supposed to make me talk? And now I’m locked in here. That can’t be legal. What the fuck is happening?” She kicked the door again. “I want to get out of here, now.”

“This is not an involuntary psych hold.”

“Then why does it feel that way?” she said.

“Sit,” Mrs. Darcy pointed to a chair next to her. Instead, Eliza took the one farthest away from her. She chuckled. “That’s better than nothing, I guess. You want some water?” she asked.

“Fuck the water! If you’re here to do a psych eval, just tell me what you want to hear and I’ll say it. Just make this quick so I can pack my shit and get out of here.”

“I understand that you’ve almost died, is that correct?”

She hated therapists.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“And Mister Fury recently ran a drug test which revealed that you have been abusing morphine for the past couple of days,” she said, definitely repeating what she had read in a file and not something she deduced on her own.

Eliza shrugged. “I had major surgery,” she explained, “I was in pain. I made that choice and it worked.”

“But you’re completely healthy now. Why would you continue taking morphine if not for recreational purposes?”

“What do you want from me, Mrs. Darcy?” she asked, exasperated. “I’m fine. I’m great. I don’t need a therapist. I just want to go home.”

“You don’t exactly have a home anymore,” Mrs. Darcy replied.

“That was a low blow. And even if I did, that would be none of your business. In fact, none of this is any of your business. This is my life, I get to make the decisions.” Eliza stood up. “I want to leave, right now.”

The woman smiled softly. “You could do that, or you could listen to that rational voice inside your head and sit back down so I can help you.”

“I don’t need help!” She groaned. “Why does nobody get that?”

“I think you need help, and I think you know that too. PTSD is nothing you should ignore. Besides, I can see in your eyes how scared you are. You might not want to admit it to yourself, but you’re scared of the person you’ve become and are continuing to turn into. You don’t know what you want. I’m here to help you figure that out. I’m here to help you find back to yourself.”

“No,” she said.

“Near-death experiences often lead to detachment from the self. I’ve seen it happen to many of my patients. And for you, the events that lead up to that experience were very triggering,” Mrs. Darcy stated as if she was living inside of her all this time. “You didn’t know how to deal with it, so you shut down. I get that, but you can’t keep living like this.”

“Maybe I don’t want to live,” she muttered under her breath.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, that was not nothing. You just admitted something. That’s good. Please, Eliza,” she begged, “Let me help you get out of this spiral you’re in.”

Eliza threw her arms up. “What do you want from me? Do you want to hear about the fact that I found out that my father was alive? Or that Tony lied to me about all of it? That I have an infinity stone inside of me? That I’ve been hearing a voice in my head that somehow turned into a real person? That I’ve been having hallucinations?” she sucked in a sharp breath, realizing she stopped breathing halfway through the speech.

It all came spurting out of her like a broken waterline, and those have always been hard to fix.

“Or- or that I found out Hydra was still out there, hm?” she challenged. “That they wanted me solely for my blood? Or that my father sold me out? Or how about the part where I slept with Daredevil, like, many times and it was good fucking sex, but that’s not the point! He somehow fell in love with me, but I couldn’t love him back, so we broke up,” she said. “How does that sound?”

Meanwhile, Mrs. Darcy scribbled down her notes without even looking at the paper. She kept her eyes on Eliza, silently telling her that while she was doing something else, she had her full attention. She hated that look in her eyes. It always managed to make her break.

“Oh, and the Avengers came back. Surprise, surprise! But they knew about my past too, before I even did, so they lied. They all lied to me. Do you want to hear that? Do you want to hear about all the lies I’ve uncovered, told to me by the people I used to call my only family?”

She tilted her head. The motion infuriated her. “What else?” Mrs. Darcy asked, challenging her, and she refused to let her talk down on her, so she continued.

In her state of rage, she wasn’t in control of her words.

“Well, I can also offer you the fact that I dumped my friends to use my father to get into the White Room, which Hydra rebuilt realistically, may I add, and for the first time, I saw where I come from, so I had like this huge explosion of power that did a lot of fucked up things to our reality. Then, Hydra took me,” Eliza continued with a short laugh, “That was planned. Plot twist, I know. Turns out, the man who took my childhood was responsible for it all along. Viktor is his name. I can finally say it.”

And it felt good.

“I killed a man,” she said. She searched for any sign of resentment in the woman’s eyes, but she was met with the same steel façade she always wore.

Her nostrils flared as she huffed, shaking her head and cracking her knuckles behind her back. “He sang the lullaby Viktor used to sing for me. That stupid song… I snapped and it felt so fucking good.” Eliza licked her lips. “I can still feel his blood on me and I loved every second of watching that man die at my hands,” she said.

“That’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it?” Mrs. Darcy questioned and although the question was more than rhetorical, she had that particular glint in her eyes that she always had when she tried to provoke a reaction – she meant nothing and yet everything exactly the way she said it.

Her approach was different, radical and it worked. She hated that it worked. Her heart raced, blood boiling and the pent-up air in her joints released with every tense roll of her shoulders. She tried her hardest not to show how much this was affecting her, but there was nothing she could slip past the woman who had seen her through the worst of the worst and still continued to stay strong, not at all freaked or defeated. She could push as hard as she wanted, Mrs. Darcy was having none of it. The transparency came with the job.

“I tried to kill Viktor too, I already had the gun in my hand. I could have ended it right then and there, but I didn’t. Instead, I left to save the people who only lied to me time and time again. For what? To be lied to again?” Eliza sneered. “You want to know the best part? When I got out and we won, my not-brother came out to shoot me because he is- was a greedy little bastard that couldn’t deal with the fact that his idol loved me more than him,” she told her.

“I died, except that I didn’t. The whole time my heart stopped, I was in this abandoned hospital, going through all of the memories Hydra managed to wash out of me. I went from door to door and I saw my life flash before my eyes. That was hard.”

She sighed in defeat, hoping she got the most of it out and that she would finally ease her torture now, give her the freedom to walk and never look back. She wanted to so desperately, she would have done just about anything.

The world suffocated her under its weight that rested on her overworked shoulders again, and she could no longer hold it upright. “Can I go now?” she asked, still absent, still apathetic.

Eliza put a distance between her and the events she mentioned, turning them into the plot of a bad story instead of reality. That way, it became less real and she didn’t have to worry about the way the truth made her feel.

It was silly. She had to tell herself it was. It had to be. She couldn’t cry, she couldn’t let it break her. She was stronger than that. She was stronger than the broken girl they all saw her as. Giving in would only give them what they wanted.

“There is so much to unpack here,” Mrs. Darcy replied nonchalantly. She closed her notebook again, choosing to take a different approach. “What exactly did you see?” she asked.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake! Can we not do this?” she said. The please got caught in her throat.

“Eliza, what did you see?”

She shrugged as she slid down the wall, seating herself on the floor. Everything else felt too damn soft.

“You know-”

Eliza intercepted. “I watched my mother die,” she told her.

Mrs. Darcy leaned forward on her elbows. “Okay.”

“And my father tried to be good to me, but I guess I went a bit out of control. I saw myself hurt our neighbor when I was just one year old because he, uh, yelled at me and I couldn’t have that, so my body lashes out. No, the stone did. I don’t know, I wasn’t in control. I wasn’t there.”

“How did that make you feel?”

“Angry,” she answered. “All of this… it makes me so fucking angry. You make me angry.”

The therapist smiled. There it was, the pressure point she had been waiting for. She pushed her finger down on the bruise by saying, “And what do you have to be angry about?”

“All of it!” Eliza cried out. “My mother died because she chose my life over hers. My father failed to raise me, so he felt the need to give me away. Asgard wanted me, but instead of giving me to people who understood what was wrong with me, he made me join a program for powered children. He gave me to Hydra because he thought they could help me, and then Viktor took me in and he made me believe that he was the only man in my life who mattered,” she said. “And it makes me angry that I didn’t fight back. I didn’t fight back when they experimented on me. I didn’t fight back when they taught me how to kill, how to fight, and how to use the energy running through my veins. And I didn’t fight back when I was paraded like a zoo animal or when Viktor…” she dropped her head in her hands, grunting, “I didn’t fight back when he touched me. I let him tell me that I was only deserving of his love, that his word was all that mattered. I fucking let him take my childhood instead of fighting back.”

“Are you just angry or is there something else in there, perhaps? Another emotion you can’t quite place?”

“I’m ashamed! Is that what you want to hear? I’m ashamed of myself!” She knocked her head back against the wall. “I remember every single time he used his belt to punish me. He whipped me until I couldn’t breathe anymore; he whipped me until I was bleeding on the floor. I have the scars to prove it. Every time I look into the fucking mirror, I’m reminded of what I got and what he thought I deserved,” she said. “And I remember his hands… God, his fucking hands! And when I stood across from him in the White Room and he said all those things, I- I almost fell for them, do you understand? I believed what he said. I believed that I was a monster only he could love and that the people around me only get hurt because it’s me they’re around. And he was right, he was fucking right because now everyone I’ve ever cared about has gotten hurt in one way or another and I’m alone. I’m so fucking alone, I don’t know what to do. I need to keep them far away from me so I won’t get hurt again. So I won’t be the one to break them. But nobody gets that. You don’t get it!” she cried. “You’re supposed to get it but you don’t.”

Mrs. Darcy hummed. “But didn’t you choose to be alone?” she asked.

Eliza angrily wiped her cheek before rising back to her feet. “No, you don’t get to do that,” she bellowed. “You don’t get to say that to me. You don’t get to make me the villain of this story.”

“Tell me I’m wrong then.”

“I don’t… oh, fuck you! I know it’s my fault I’m alone. That’s why I never let myself fall for people. I used to let men use me and abuse me because Viktor did and I thought I deserved that.”

“But you didn’t deserve that. Sexual assault is not something that’s the victim’s fault, ever.”

“Well, at least I couldn’t hurt anyone back then. If I let them hurt me, there’s less chance of them getting hurt because of me.”

She chuckled. “That didn’t work so well, did it?”

“Yeah, that’s I’m trying very hard not to connect with people right now. You’re fucking that plan up, not me.”

She diverted her gaze out of the window. Eliza was trying her hardest not to cry. Somehow the sight of the roses outside made her choke up though. Roses were such beautiful flowers, and as the butterflies passed by she finally stopped to wonder, “What have I done?”

“What if,” she began, her voice cracking, so she swallowed and tried again, “What if, after everything that I’ve gone through, something’s gone wrong inside me… something bad.”

Mrs. Darcy gave her signature sigh. “You are not a bad person. Far from it, actually,” she said.

“But I killed someone.”

“Because the song you mentioned triggered the mechanism Viktor put inside of you with his constant brainwashing. You responded because there will always be a part of you that associates his voice with following his demands, any demands. That’s trauma, Eliza. Trauma doesn’t just go away.“

She leaned her forehead against the glass. Once again, the voices in her head kept shouting. The monster tore at her brain cells and poisoned her soul. She didn’t want to listen to them, she wanted to listen to Mrs. Darcy, but it was hard when all the sounds were overlapping and she couldn’t focus on anything but her labored breathing.

“I believe you were confronted with so many feelings, you didn’t know how to act, and the love you received only reminded you of what happened. It’s twisted and doesn’t make sense, but Viktor traumatized you. Hydra traumatized you. The constant reminder of what they’ve done to you has manifested and maybe you just didn’t want to be yourself anymore, so you shut down.”

She hated herself. She wished she could exchange her mind and body for something else, something new, a piece of her that wasn’t damaged goods. Perhaps then she would finally have a place in the world.

Her leg bounced up and down to the beat of her speeding pulse. She wiped her cheeks, shaking her head no, because no, she was wrong. She wasn’t supposed to know Eliza better than she knew herself, and put the things she struggled to voice into words that made sense even to her twisted state of mind. If she allowed her in, she was done for. She would officially be the basket case.

Her defenses were close to crumbling. She was barely holding on to what was left.

Mrs. Darcy sensed that and made sure to point the gun straight at her weakest spot and pull the trigger. “Your mind is trying to protect itself,” she explained in all of her psychological glory, “but the real you is starting to come through and it makes you rethink what you did, subconsciously at least. That’s normal and that’s more than okay. You’re allowed to snap. It’s the trauma that’s wrong, not you. The way you’re feeling is not your fault and there is hope for you to get better; nothing has gone wrong inside of you. It’s just trauma, nothing more, and lucky for you, trauma can be dealt with if approached correctly.”

Eliza scoffed.

“That’s why I’m here.”

“I feel like part of me died on that table,” she winced. “And the voices in my head keep telling me to destroy myself. In their opinion, everything is my fault and I don’t deserve to breathe.”

“And that makes you angry?” Mrs. Darcy asked to clarify. “Being controlled by forces that are out of your control? Having depression possess you and you’re helpless and can’t fight back?”

She shrugged. “Maybe, I don’t know.”

This was no life worth living.

“Let me tell you something,” she switched positions by seating herself on the edge of the table, “Everyone’s got broken pieces. Some have more, some have less. It doesn’t make you less of a person or a bad one to have those a part of you,” she said.

“Then why does it feel that way?”

“Well, there are many different people on this planet. All of us struggle with something different. You might have different fears than me and we’re obviously on very different paths. However, when we get down to the core of it, there are two things that every single human being on this planet struggles with.”

“What’s that?” she asked, looking over her shoulder.

Mrs. Darcy smiled back at her. “Admitting when we’re wrong, and admitting when we’re broken.”

When she didn’t answer, the therapist reached for the chair next to her. She pulled out a cardboard box with differently colored toys, soft ones from the look of it, and she shoved it toward her.

Eliza frowned. “What’s that?”

“How about we throw some shit against the wall,” she offered. “How does that sound?”

“Throw some shit against the wall?” she repeated.

“Yes. You say you’re angry, I want to know what exactly you’re angry about.”

She looked at her a bit perplexed. Mrs. Darcy was very equipped when it came to talking, but this was a new method, even for her. She had never suggested she let her anger out on objects, let alone throw things. The suggestion took her so off guard, the tears stopped before they could even come.

“Here,” she handed her a pink, fluffy dolphin, “Throw it.”

She followed her demand only hesitantly. The dolphin didn’t even make it halfway across the room before it hit the ground instead. She gnawed on her bottom lip.

Mrs. Darcy sighed. She pushed herself up to her feet, grabbed one of the blue squishy balls out of the box, and threw it with full force against the wall. Eliza raised her eyebrows at the sheer strength of her therapist.

“Your throw was pathetic,” she stated. “Try again.”

Determined to prove her wrong - because everything in Eliza’s life was somehow a competition she wanted to win - she grabbed a stuffed animal from the collection and aimed it at the wall. This time, she hit her target. The hard eyes of the dog hit the wood with a loud thud.

“Tell me, what were you thinking when you threw that dog?”

“That sounds so wrong. Uh… I was thinking about beating you, mostly.”

“That’s fair. Life’s a competition, I get it. Now, grab another one and put some more anger into it. Really use that strength you were given. Don’t think, just do it. Be angry.”

She did as she was told. The next toy hit the wall and this time, she cried out, “Viktor took my childhood and my pride, and I’m angry it took me so long to realize that he was entirely wrong in his assessment of me,” she said.

Mrs. Darcy clapped. “Good! What else? Keep ‘em coming.”

“I’m angry that my family lied to me!” Eliza aimed another toy at the wall. She was sure she would leave holes in it after. “I’m angry that my father gave me away and that he sold me out! And I’m angry that he sacrificed himself to stop Hydra and save my life because he was my fucking dad – he’s supposed to be here, not dead! He supposed to be alive and make amends not take the coward’s way out and fucking die on me!”

Tears had started to form in her eyes again, but she didn’t stop them this time.

The collection in the box shrunk. She reached aimlessly, throwing the next best object against the wall. Her voice boomed. “Tony was supposed to help me. He promised me he would always help me,” she said. “Natasha was supposed to be my sister. Clint was like a father to me. They were supposed to be my family and they still lied! They all betrayed me. Every single one of them.

“I’m angry that I killed that man, and that I didn’t see Ivan coming before he shot me. I’m angry that it took me almost dying to remember everything, and that I turned into a ghost after I woke up. I’m angry that I hurt Matt more than once after I promised him and myself that I wouldn’t do it. And then I took drugs because I was angry and in pain and I wanted to feel nothing, which only made me feel worse. It makes me fucking,” she threw the ball, “hate,” she threw another toy, “myself!” She grabbed the last object and this time, she left a clear indentation in the wall.

Her scream was agonizingly loud, traveling as an echo through the room, bouncing off the walls and filling the entire compound with negative energy, it seemed.

“But most importantly I’m angry that he fell in love with me and I don’t know shit about my feelings!” Another scream and the cardboard box soared against the wall. “Oh, God,” she went weak in the knees, falling to the floor, “I’m incapable of love.”

She heaved one last breath before the gates of hell opened and she broke down completely. Tears spilled from her eyes and her sobs turned into a cacophony of screams and hiccups. She held tightly onto the crystal necklace she had not once taken off.

The world around her crumbled, and the monster in her head drowned in the flood. The voices left, though the emptiness in her soul remained, and the hole only grew wider. With each sob, she lost another ounce of strength. Her heart got tied in a knot.

Mrs. Darcy knelt next to her. “That’s good,” she cooed. “Let it out.”

“No.” Eliza pushed her hand away. “I- I don’t want to let it out. I just want the pain to stop. Why won’t it stop? Oh, God!”

She helped her off the floor and into one of the chairs.

“Your not-boyfriend boyfriend is catholic, isn’t he?”

What does that have to do with anything? She only sobbed harder.

Her therapist seemed to be onto something though.

“It's rather funny. Every civilization to exist has made up some sort of God or religion. It's like we can't stand to be alone in this."

Eliza focused on her voice.

“What I’m trying to tell you is that you’re not the only one who feels alone most of the time,” Mrs. Darcy said. “We all do. Some people rely on faith, for example. They channel all of their negative energy and bring it to church because God gives them a purpose in life. They believe he guides them. And then there are people like you, people who are traumatized and who don’t see a point in religion. You find something else to hold onto. Pushing people away only makes the pain worse. You need someone to hold onto; if you want to stop being in pain, you need to stop pushing people away. That’s the only way.”

She focused on the woman’s breathing and the way her words sounded. Her sobs died down only slowly. The tears kept flowing, but she could breathe again, the sounds reduced to small hiccups whenever she took a deep breath.

Mrs. Darcy offered her a drink of water and she took it gladly. The liquid helped with her sore throat, clearing some of the fog in her brain along the way.

She waited until she had calmed down to continue. It was sweet torture, but it seemed to help.

If this was what she had needed all along, she made quite the fool out of herself. And just like that, the guilt settled back in and built a nest in her soul.

“The worst part is,” Eliza eventually found her voice again, though only weakly as she spoke, “I don’t know why I’m feeling this way. One second I’m fine, the next I feel like dying and then I’m just empty. And I’m standing here, like a fool,” she said. “I can’t do anything about it. This swirl of nothingness keeps me tied to the ground and while I’m supposed to be in pain – I think I’m supposed to be, anyway – I don’t feel a thing. I’m numb to the point it’s excruciating, so it is painful but not really, not at all. What if… what if this is what I’m supposed to be? Just one broken amalgamation of broken pieces people will continue cutting themselves on. I mean, how am I supposed to live when my own body doesn’t want to anymore? When my mind is so tired, it can’t stop thinking, what if- what if I’d died that day?”

She stopped to swallow. The vulnerability tasted bitter on her tongue, triggering a wave of nausea. Facing the truth hurt like a bitch.

“I keep thinking maybe it would’ve been kinder if they’d just let me pass. At least then I wouldn’t feel like such a fucking burden all the time. What if that’s all I will ever be? It’s terrifying, how much I’ve been thinking about that lately. I just want it all to stop. I don’t want to not feel, but I also don’t want to feel. I just… the things I’m feeling are confusing and I’m starting to realize that maybe, I’ve made a mistake. Maybe, just maybe, I shouldn’t have pushed Matt away the way I did. The things I said were cruel, Mrs. Darcy,” she said, “and he probably hates me now, but I can’t stop wanting him, even now, but especially since he’s gone. Not a day has passed in which I don’t think about him and it scares me.”

Something clicked in the therapist’s brain. She pulled out another chair and sat down across from her.

“He’s shown you quite a lot of love, hasn’t he?” she said. “And you felt suffocated by it because you’re not used to romantics.”

“No one’s ever loved me before,” Eliza admitted, her voice broken down into shambles. “I don’t know how it’s supposed to feel, but he loved me so much it hurt and I broke his heart. He cut himself on my edges because I wanted him to. I wanted him to hurt so he could move on with someone who could make him happy.”

“But he was happy with you.”

“No, he wasn’t. It was merely co-dependency. He fell in love with me after we leaned on each other in an impossible situation,” she said. “That’s inherently different.”

“Is it though?” Mrs. Darcy asked.

Eliza thought about it. Their relationship had been toxic, there was no doubt about it, simply because she was toxic. He deserved a much better girlfriend than her. She wasn’t made for this, and while she warned him, nothing could have prepared him for the storm that she brought on. She always did. She destroyed everyone she was with – that was the reason for her lack of relationship experience. She had never allowed any of her endeavors to go this far. Perhaps that was precisely the problem though.

She wiped her snotty nose. “He looks at me in a way that makes me want to believe in myself. Ironic, really, ‘cause he’s blind, but… yeah, I don’t know.” She returned to playing with her fingers in her lap, playing with the loose skin on her thumb once again. Her thigh twitched every so often, shaking up and down in a steady rhythm.

“You were scared of that, weren’t you?”

“I don’t…” she sighed, “I don’t know anymore. What I do know is that I’m sorry for what I did to him, but it’s probably too late now anyway.”

“You’re not incapable of love,” Mrs. Darcy declared. “If anything, you’re one of the most loving people I’ve ever met. You care deeply, you just haven’t had the chance to explore romantic love yet because your view on intimacy has been twisted from the very beginning… and now you’ve been betrayed numerous times and he’s shown you more affection than you’ve ever been shown, so you chose to lock him out because you were scared of what loving him would entail.”

“But I don’t love him,” she argued.

“Are you sure about that?”

Eliza got up to stare out of the window again. She couldn’t face her. She wouldn't listen to the one thing she didn’t want to hear.

Mrs. Darcy was having none of it. She joined her in front of the big glass window, sighing at the beauty of nature. The sun fell right on their faces.

“You’re right, I care. I care a lot,” she said. “Matt is just… he’s something else. And I’m not talking about sex, not at all. He’s special. I care for him a lot, everything he ever did for me, every time he smiled fondly at me, every time he praised me for the smallest things, it just felt right with him … I feel complete with him and I just want him close to me at all times, while also wanting him as far away from me as possible. His affection hurts, but at the same time, I can’t get enough of it. He makes me want to burn the world down and build it up again. Life without him is torture, which seemed to only have added to my pain, but I couldn’t let him stay. He would’ve gotten hurt sooner or later so I made the conscious choice to allow him to move on. He doesn’t deserve a toxic relationship atop everything else. I’m not used to feeling this way. I don’t know, it’s stupid. I’m stupid.”

She shook her head, “I don’t think you are. I think you know exactly what’s going on. As I said, you’re scared and it’s keeping you from allowing anyone all the way in.”

“Don’t you get it?” Eliza sighed. “Matt loves with a certain devotion because he has only been hurt in the past and he’s scared people might leave him. He’s in a constant battle with himself, scared of never being good enough, scared of doing the wrong thing, scared of disappointing his friends. So he pushes them away. He does what he thinks is right, and it often is. When he loves someone, he loves so hard, it hurts,” she said. “He needs to hold on as tightly as possible because he is scared that if he doesn’t, he will lose that person forever. He’s scared they will walk out the door and never come back. He doesn’t just fall in love with anybody, he falls in love when he has faith that the person is the right one, so he lets them into his beautiful, big heart. He’s so scared of getting hurt, of being not good enough, and he’s… he’s scared… of love, because he’s been hurt before, but… he does it anyway. He does it because he has faith and fear… fear paralyzes, but it isn’t stronger than love.”

She blinked once, twice, feeling the metaphorical hit with the brick in every fiber of her body as she seemed to finally wake up. She opened her eyes to the truth, and the truth was right in front of her.

“Oh, my God.”

Mrs. Darcy might as well have held up a mirror for her to look into. She would have said the same thing.

“Fucking- oh, what have I done?”

The woman smirked knowingly. “Something you want to share with the class?” she teased.

Eliza had other plans. The realization hit her so hard, it felt like a semi-truck just ran her over. She grabbed her jacket from the chair, throwing it over her shoulders. She almost twisted her arm, she was that eager. Her heartbeat picked up at the mere thought of seeing him again.

“I’m so fucking stupid. An idiot! I am an idiot. Officially, I’m the dumbest fucking person on this goddamn planet. Fuck me. Oh, shit!”

The series of swear words surprised Mrs. Darcy, as did the girl’s sudden movements to get her clothes in place.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

Eliza stared at her. “I need to fix this.” Duh.

“Sorry, what?”

“I have to fix this. I was so stupid, I didn’t realize… he’s me. He’s me! Matt is me.”

“And?”

“And I’m an idiot.”

“You already said that.”

“Just… I need to fix this. I need to try and salvage what’s left. I have to… there has to be a way. I can’t… God, I was so stupid. I have to try, at least. I need to tell him,” she said. Her converse clicked against the floor as she jumped up to hug her therapist. “Thank you!” The first genuine smile spread across her face. She hadn’t smiled like that since before she got shot and Hydra took her.

Sometimes, the truth isn’t that bad. Sometimes, realization can be exciting. And sometimes, or most of the time, therapy sets a lot of shit right.

There was still so much to unpack, so much to heal, and the topic of her addiction had to be explored further, but at that moment all Eliza could think about was Matt and how incredibly stupid she had been. Blind, too. She had been blind, afraid to look into the mirror and see the truth. She was pathetic and completely idiotic, in a pathetic way that made her embarrassed even for the way she breathed, and she had to pull herself together and fix this or else she would hate herself until the end of time.

She forgot that the door was locked and ran straight into it. “Damn it,” she cursed.

Mrs. Darcy didn’t hesitate long. She pulled out a key and the door opened with a small twist.

Eliza exhaled. The door handle crashed into the wall behind it, breaking the wood. “Thank you,” she said.

The woman was about to say something, but she had already taken off down the hallway.

“Young love,” she sighed. “So predictable.”

Eliza found her way out of the compound. She jogged to the nearest street where she waved frantically until one of the few cabs stopped for her. “I need to get to Hell’s Kitchen as fast as you possibly can,” she told the driver. “Life or death situation.”

As soon as she said that, he floored the gas.

She only began to think about her decision when she was already halfway there. All the things she thought she wanted to say vanished from her brain. She even rehearsed a speech, but the familiar streets of Hell’s Kitchen stole her breath, and she couldn’t string together a single viable thought.

The cabby stopped when she patted his shoulder. Her hands were shaking as she handed him the money. She could see him clearly out of the cab’s window. He almost reached his front step, wearing one of his work suits, and his cane tightly clutched in his hand as he walked down the street.

She jumped out of the backseat just in time.

“Matt, wait!” she called out.

He froze. His head tilted in her direction, listening to the way her heart sang the all too familiar song. She was warm and freshly showered and she still wore the same shirt and leggings combo SHIELD had given her after she woke up. It was a fresh pair, of course, and the pair of Converse was new too. She seemed healthy otherwise, only slightly malnourished, overworked and tired.

Matt was more shocked than surprised to sense her presence, and the way her heart jumped at his sight had him frowning even deeper.

“Eliza?” he asked.

Her systems malfunctioned. “Hi,” she said.

“What are you doing here?”

Ouch. She more than deserved his harsh tone, but it still hurt.

She balled her fists, walking up to him. It was now or never, and she hadn’t come this far just to stay silent and stare at him like a total creep. Though he looked too good not to let her gaze linger for a little while longer.

“I, um…” Eliza cleared her throat. “Okay, so, I actually thought of this amazing speech on the drive here, but I just… I forgot, so I’m just gonna freestyle.”

“Okay?” There was reservation on his face. She couldn’t see his eyes, but she suspected they matched his entire attitude.

She cleared her throat again, the lump only growing bigger. “I’m sorry,” she said. “And I’m well aware sorry doesn’t cut it even close. I hurt you more than once and I broke your heart in the process. I said terrible things to you, things I didn’t even mean. I pushed you away. You didn’t deserve any of that and I am so sorry for what I did. But I also know you don’t trust me right now, which is fair. I… okay, the past couple of days I trained my ass off to get back on my feet, and while that worked perfectly, I pushed away the real problem, which was me. I’m the problem.

“No, I’m the one with the problems. You were right, I need help. The things that happened kept me awake at night, making it impossible to sleep and I only felt suffocated by your kindness, so I started to resent you,” she said. “I shouldn’t have pushed you away when things got hard and I should have talked to you about what was wrong with me instead of ignoring all the obvious signs that my mental health was getting bad again. That is no excuse for my behavior, far from it, I just… I spent the past, I don’t know, eight hours talking to my therapist and I felt so stupid, so humiliated, I wasn’t sure if I was even gonna make it out of this. But I realized something. I realized something that I should have realized a long time ago.”

Matt darted his tongue out to wet his bottom lip. “I’m glad to hear you’re okay,” he said, “but what does that have to do with me?”

Eliza nodded. She deserved it, she deserved all of that. Maybe she was too late, maybe he had moved on, but she wasn’t ready to give up just yet.

“You don’t take sugar in your latte, but you take one in your regular coffee and just the slightest amount of creamer,” she began.

His ears perked up. She was going all in now, all or nothing, the winner would take it all and she prayed to a God she didn’t believe in that all of this trying wouldn’t be for nought and he would declare her the winner in the end – the winner of his heart. The winner of his forgiveness. She would do just about anything to get back what she lost; she had given the best thing in her life away as if he had been an object at an auction. There was no price she wouldn’t pay to get him back.

Once she knew she had his full attention, she dared to inch closer. “And you prefer chamomile tea over any of the other flavors because it’s not as strong, though you said it’s also because chamomile tea still tastes good when you let it set for just a little shorter than what’s written on the box,” she said. “You keep your most used spices on the right side because you are right-handed and it makes it easier for you to grab things. Your furniture stands a certain way and you refuse to move it. You use silk sheets because cotton feels like sandpaper on your skin. You have curtains, but you don’t close them because you don’t need them, but since we’ve known each other I’ve noticed you closing them every night so I could sleep better. You also have this habit of fidgeting with your fingers,” She broke off with a chuckle. “It’s adorable. You do it when you’re nervous or just thinking, and when you’re condescending, you place your hands on your hips.

“And you also keep tags on your suits and your everyday clothing, but not on your sleep shirts or your underwear. You have a collection of canes in the closet because you like to throw them around when you happen to hear something while you’re outside. And when you get overstimulated, you like to sit in the shower and listen to the water rain down on the tiles to lull your sense of hearing.”

She watched his body language. He turned his head anywhere but her direction, though she knew he was listening closely to what she said. There was a slight cut on his lip, she realized, and the shadow of a bruise formed around his left eye. She wondered what happened since he left; if he started beating up criminals again, or if he just let someone beat him senseless to make the pain go away.

“Rain is your favorite weather because it drowns out the noise of New York,” Eliza continued, ignoring the ache in her chest at the sight of him. “I know you don’t like summer because you often get too hot, winter is too cold for you, so you prefer spring or fall. You like the taste of peppermint and pumpkin spice, but only when it’s made a certain way, or else you get overwhelmed. This is why you don’t go to the expensive coffee shops, only to those you know and frequent because you know they always get your coffee order right. It’s usually the same, but not always. Sometimes, you like to be adventurous. Many people see you as a very serious person, but you’re not. You know how to crack a joke and the wrinkles around your eyes prove that you used to laugh a hell of a lot more. And your smile… God, that smile.

“You know, the genuine one you don’t give everyone, the one you often match with a giddy laugh or a giggle, it lights up every room you’re in, even though you only show it every once in a while,” she chuckled, “And every time you walk into a room, you take everyone’s breaths away because you are just so damn beautiful. Something you refuse to believe,” she said.

“And you are a man who believes in many things, just not in himself. You think you’re worthless because you’ve been hurt many times before, but when you care for someone, you care for them deeply, past experiences be damned. It’s remarkable how much good you see in this broken world. I know that you struggle with faith more often than not, but you always come back to it. Always,” Eliza emphasized with the strength of an army. “It offers you solace and reminds you of your childhood, which isn’t often paired with happy memories, but you feel less alone when you pray. Faith gives you something to hold onto.”

She sunk her teeth into her bottom lip. It was hard to tell what he was feeling or even thinking. He stood as stiff as stone, turning away from her as if he could see and the sight of her filled him with disgust.

“I’m not religious, far from it,” she admitted, though it was a well-known fact. “My heart is full of the hate of some other man’s belief. All that I’ve been taught and every word I got right now if I can even find them, are foreign to me. I’m mostly empty inside, I pretend to be a hero and then I go around breaking people’s hearts, I’m a fraud, and when I went to church, I didn’t know what God to pray to, I just poured my heart out to someone I don’t believe in. He’s foreign to me. Everything in this world is still somewhat foreign to me because my life has long revolved around being told what to do or believe, and I took that with me. When I got out, I didn’t really get out. I never really came back. I’m broken,” she stated, “but you’re perfect, even with your broken edges and your imperfections. Your eyes are wide open to the world even though you can’t see, and you’re always filled with so much love for everything and everyone around you, it’s almost sickening. I thought your love was making me sick, but I was so wrong. So, so wrong, Matt. I would give all this and heaven too if only for a moment I could just understand the meaning of the world you see. I’ve been scrawling it for what feels like fucking forever and it never made sense to me before. The world meant nothing before you came around. I didn’t understand it, but it makes sense to me now. It all makes sense.”

He finally turned to her. “What does that mean?” he asked.

“It means that I am unconditionally, irrevocably, head-over-heels in love with you!” Eliza burst at the seams. “I have been from the day you first kissed me. Hell, I think I’ve been in love with you since you stepped into that stupid interrogation room to bail me out. It’s because you came back. No one’s ever done that for me before. I was stupid and so scared of love that I pushed all of my feelings down. But you’ve occupied every thought I had ever since you left, and I can’t seem to get you out of my head. You’re always there, everywhere I go. Everything reminds me of you and it hurts to know you’re not there. I wondered why… this is why!”

Matt folded his cane, dropping it on the doorstep.

“I’m in love with you, Matthew Michael Murdock, and it feels so fucking good to finally say it out loud. Everything makes sense now. It feels like I can finally breathe again; after all this time of walking in the darkness, I’ve finally seen the light at the end of the tunnel, and I’m choosing to walk toward it,” she said. “And I know that I’ve hurt you, I’ve hurt you badly, and there is a very big chance I might not be able to fix this… there is a chance that you have fallen out of love with me, that you don’t love me anymore because of what I’ve done, and I’d understand that. I’d understand if you rejected me or told me to go to hell, but please, say something before I make an even bigger fool out of myself. I really can’t find any more words to say that would make sense to anyone but myself. I mean, I’ve already embarrassed myself, so I guess it can’t get any worse, but...”

“Eliza?” he said.

“What?”

“Shut up.”

She gasped audibly when he grabbed her by the waist, pulling her into him with a strength that remained unmatched, and crashed his lips into hers.

Eliza melted into the kiss instantly, her hands coming up to hold his face. He had the same idea. As she pushed back against him, he gently brushed his fingers over her cheekbone. His lips still moved feverishly against hers, and she submitted to him completely. He chose the pace and the intensity, he explored her mouth with his tongue and she let him.

Eventually, he dove up for air, and she stared at him breathlessly as the moonlight fell on his face and reflected off his glasses. She pressed her forehead against his, breathing him in. He showered with his body wash again, and his hair was fluffy from his shampoo. She had missed his signature scent and the way his body molded with hers.

Matt removed his glasses, tossing them in the direction of his cane. They landed on the ground. He grabbed her face again, not wasting another second to combine them into one. Her nails raked over his jaw, the other getting lost in his chestnut hair. She sighed and he took the opportunity to deepen the connection.

She couldn’t believe this was happening. It felt as if it had just been the previous day when she pushed him away and now he was kissing her in front of his home after she expressed her love for him. A love she had undoubtedly felt from the beginning but hadn’t allowed herself to feel until it was too late - almost too late.

His kisses grew more desperate and Eliza had to physically restrain herself from sliding her hand down his body. He had been working out, there was no doubt about it.

He pulled away once again, this time opening his eyes so she could see him fully. There it was again, the look he had given her so many times before, and he could finally pinpoint the one she gave him, the one she didn’t know how to explain before.

“So,” she murmured, “do you hate me?”

Matt chuckled hoarsely. “You are the dumbest smart person I have ever met,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“It means I love you too, you insufferable dumbass. That hasn’t changed. I’m in love with you, Liz, all of you, even the parts that are a little ugly. I couldn’t stop loving you even if I tried and believe me, I tried, but it’s just not possible when it comes to you. I’m in love with you,” he said, “Nothing you do or say could ever change the way I feel so deeply about you.”

“Oh.“

“Seriously, did you think I’d kiss you and then tell you to go to hell?”

“I have no idea. I thought-”

“Stop thinking.” He pulled her face toward his again. “I don’t care how many times you hurt me, I still love you like I did the first day. Even though you annoy the shit out of me sometimes. You did on that rooftop the night we first met, but instead of hating you I think I fell in love from the moment you first tried to punch me. You took me so off guard with the amazing, badass, fucking reckless woman that you are and I fell for you right then and there.”

“Why though?” she wondered.

“Because you bewitched me, body and soul,” he told her. “You weren’t really fair about the whole thing.”

“Oh, fuck me.” Eliza initiated the kiss this time, though when she pressed her lips against his, she used her whole body to push into him.

He groaned, wrapping his arm around her waist and holding her right there, her chest pressed against his, and her leg moving slowly to wrap around his hip. His hand traveled the distance, smoothing over the fabric of her pants and moving higher to brush over the curve of her ass.

He breathed into her mouth, “It’s gonna rain soon.”

“I don’t care,” she said.

They got completely lost in the feel of each other. As predicted, the sky soon opened up to release its tears onto them. Eliza had cried enough for a lifetime and Matt probably had, too. She didn’t even want to know how much he suffered at her hand and what it made of him.

The past mattered no more though. They were together, in each other’s arms, where they were supposed to be.

She loved him, she did and admitting it took so much weight off her chest, she forgot what else had happened the past hours and days. Eliza didn’t care about Natasha or the others, she didn’t even care about the drugs. At that moment, she craved only one thing and that was him in any way he could give himself to her, and she would give herself to him freely too, just so he could do whatever he wanted. She wanted to touch him while he touched her. Kissing wasn’t even remotely enough.

The rain mixed with their salivas, making it harder to keep their faces together. Water dripped from his lashes to her own. She giggled, her hair flattening, as did his. His grin told her he was enjoying this as much as she did, kissing in the rain after a dramatic love confession.

Even though Matt didn’t watch movies and she only watched that kind when she was depressed on valentine’s day, they still found their personal rom-com moment in the midst of despair. Love didn’t come to people like them often. They had to use what they were given without questioning the universe’s intent.

Their noses pressed together. “Told you,” he said.

“I love the rain,” she told him. “It’s so beautiful. Reminds me of home.”

Throwing her head back, she felt the salty water on her flushed skin. It hadn’t been that long, but she was starting to go crazy in captivity, so she needed to have that moment for herself.

She wasn’t sure why but she associated the rain with him, not because it was cold or wet but because it had such a tragic beauty about it.

Growing old with someone required dedication, devotion, discipline, and most of all undying love for the other. They weren’t quite there yet, but she was sure she wanted more with him than just making out in the rain. She wanted more than suffering through trauma together, more than sex, and more than meaningful hugs. She wanted that, of course, but also the rest that came with love. The pretty and the ugly, the loving and fighting, the giggles, the laughter, and most of all, the happiness. She wanted to learn what it was like to be in love because she had no idea how to love, but she was willing to try, for him, because she was already in it. She was in love with him.

Matt tore her out of her thoughts with the gentlest of kisses down her neck. He breathed in her scent and felt her pulse under his lips. It jumped with excitement and he grinned. He loved having that effect on her, even now, but especially now.

“We’re gonna get sick,” he whispered into her ear.

She traced her fingers over his wet shirt. “I don’t care.”

He captured her lips, trying to ignore the shivers her touch sent down his spine. She clawed to his side, holding him impossibly tight. He smoothed her wet hair back. She sighed. If it weren’t for the cold, she would have gladly stayed longer.

“Okay, but maybe we should go inside,” she said. “It’s getting pretty wet, but not in a good way.”

He giggled, his cheeks flushed from the cold and perhaps because of her confession that filled his heart with an adoration that didn’t hurt this time. He was almost… happy. “I agree,” he said.

“C’mon. Let’s go home.”

Eliza took his hand, grabbing the glasses and his cane off the floor. He smiled softly at her consideration. Handing her the key, he merely followed as she walked them up the stairs to his apartment, a familiar route, and unlocked the door.

She didn’t get very far before he pushed her wet back against the wall and attacked her mouth with bruising kisses. Her body responded the only way it knew how to. She moaned, bucking her hips into his.

Matt kicked off his shoes, and she followed. He tucked her by the hem of her pants toward the bathroom. She let him. Her brain was fuzzy from the clear attention to detail, his lingering touches, and the caress of his lips along her cold skin. He offered her a warmth that could have dried her clothes in an instant. Though it was her heart that was warm, not her body.

He pressed another kiss to her cheek, excusing himself, and then he was gone and she was alone, and she felt insecure all of a sudden. Her arms crossed, shielding her body. He couldn’t see, but he could feel, and she wasn’t sure what he would think when he felt the way her body had changed. Even she couldn’t look at herself in the mirror. She was too repulsed by what she saw. The scars she already had were nothing in comparison to what was left of the brutal shooting at the White Room.

She tried to look cool when he returned, leaning up against the sink. “Brought you some fresh clothes,” he told her.

“Thanks,” she said.

He could tell something was off from the change in her tone. Her heartbeat sounded almost erratic. She toyed with the soft fabric of the gray sweatpants he brought for himself, and the black ones for her. She figured the grey ones were for him because he paired them with a plain shirt and she got his old Columbia shirt instead. It probably smelled like her and sex, indicating that it was the shirt she had worn many times when they fucked and no longer just a flap of fabric. And she had never seen him wear it before either, only the plain ones, so she owned it.

The shirt was hers, and he knew that too. He kept it. He kept it in the hopes of giving it to her again, and he hadn’t given them up. She came back and she could wear it as often as she wanted.

What was his was hers now, too.

He picked the white shirt. She loved that one with all her heart, thinking about the way it hugged his bicep just right and framed his torso tightly enough to give a good image of his muscles but not give away too much. He gave those who didn’t know him a good idea of what hid underneath the covers, but only she knew what laid behind the allusion. She saw it, she touched it and she now could whenever she wanted to.

The whole arrangement was new, terrifying even, and it urged her back into her cocoon. She stood strong, but she wasn’t sure for how long she could keep holding on before the jaws would snap shut, locking her in place with invisible shackles behind the bars of her mind’s own prison.

“You okay?” Matt stroked her cheek.

She answered by opening the buttons of his dress shirt one by one.

“Sweetheart,” he said again, “What’s going on in that little head of yours? Tell me. Don’t disappear on me again.”

Her hands worked fast to undress him until he was only in his boxers, standing in front of her with a slight smirk. “Do you want this?”

She nodded. It wasn’t verbal confirmation. He needed more than that.

“You can say no,” he told her.

“Wait,” she stuttered, halting all of her movements and daring to look at him for the first time since she started slipping away again, meeting his very concerned eyes, “I can?” she asked.

His heart dropped. “Of course, you can. I thought that was never out of question.” Matt traced her features to get a good impression of her expression.

He drew along the line on her forehead, smoothing out the small wrinkle and pressing his lips to the obvious display of emotional distress.

Eliza knew how to keep her emotions hidden away, but feeling her face always offered one crucial clue most people didn’t know existed. The crease on her forehead wasn’t one that came with age, it was a worried frown that had manifested and only showed when she started to think too much, and worried about things that were mostly irrational.

“Hey,” he cooed, “did I ever give you the impression that you couldn’t say no to sex?”

She swallowed. The line deepened, this time though because she panicked and the confusion started to mix with the I’ll-placed concern. “No!” Eliza answered quickly, shivering under the caress of his thumb over the prominent worried wrinkle. “I just… I wasn’t sure… I wanted this,” she said, “Until I didn’t, but I didn’t want to disappoint you. I just got you back. So I thought I could roll with it, I guess. I thought I would start wanting it again, I just had to try. Didn’t want to make you question your decision to take me back because you feel like I don’t really want you.”

“What? Oh, baby, who hurt you?”

She whimpered when he pulled her into a hug. His body was warm, even when wet. She melted once again, wrapping her arms around him.

“I know people have pushed you into having sex before, but I won’t. I would never,” he said. “You know that. You should know that. I should have made that clearer.”

“It’s not you, I promise.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me. No means no.”

“I don’t like my body right now. You’re so beautiful,” she whispered, “but I feel far from it, so thinking about your hands on me, I…” the tears sprung back into action.

He sighed, rubbing his thumbs over her swollen under-eyes. “I’m sorry, I should have checked in with you.”

“Don’t, please.”

“Never feel like you can’t say no to me,” he told her. “It hurts me to know that you’ve never had that option before. I’m different from all of the lowlife men you’ve been with in the past. I love you,” Matt pecked her lips, “And I find you to be the most beautiful person out there, so I would love nothing more than to touch you any chance I get, but it’s your body, your choice, and if you say you don’t feel like being touched, that’s your right. Never think that I would be angry at you for saying no, okay? Promise me you’ll tell me from now on?”

She shuddered against him. “Okay.”

“That’s good, sweetie. Thank you.”

“I love you so much, Matthew. I really want to want this… I want the intimacy, I want to feel you, but I just can’t…”

He shushed her again by kissing the Sorry lines away from her forehead. “Would you like to take a bath with me?” he suggested.

She nodded weakly.

“Hot bath,” he turned on the tap to fill the tub with water, “Always makes you feel better. I won’t even have to touch anywhere you don’t want me to while you can still feel my skin on yours. Innocently, of course.”

“I already feel better,” Eliza said.

He took her back into his arms, helping her out of her shirt without touching her skin. She slipped out of her soaked pants and her underwear. Matt removed his boxers, the last piece of clothing left between them.

She sighed at the sight of him. He was still just as beautiful. Her fingers traced over the outline of his abs and his swollen scars. She wanted him to touch her too, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t have him trailing his fingers down her torso, feeling the thick scar that stretched from where her breasts ended to her navel. The scars from the entry wounds where the bullets penetrated her skin had healed circularly, and the scar tissue there was thick. She didn’t want to think about how awful they would feel to him.

Eliza climbed into the tub first. The water was warm, but not too hot, the perfect temperature. He waited for her to get adjusted before he slid down behind her, pulling her flush against his chest from behind.

She sighed, relaxing into him fully. His arm reached around her shoulders, offering even more stability. Her hand tangled in his hair. She pulled him down until she could kiss his lips, taste the rain on them and slip her tongue inside his very hot mouth.

The foam from the bath water stuck to his skin. It smelled of lavender, but only slightly. Mixed with the vanilla of her skin, the sensations exploded like the perfect cake batter on his tongue.

Eliza watched the water trickle down his bicep. That stupid bicep. Every time he flexed, really flexed, she died a little inside. In a good way though. In a way that had her aroused almost instantly just at the prospect of being choked by those arms, or the way they tensed when his fingers were deep inside of her or holding her hips down as his head dove between her thighs, eating her out as if he hadn’t eaten in months.

She loved to watch his arms in the tight confines of his dress shirts, threatening to break the fabric, or when he rolled his sleeves up. There was something so beautiful yet sexually attractive about his arms and the muscles that made them, but even without flexing there was something about the way he was built that had her on her knees just thinking about it.

She kept running her hands over them long after they got out of the tub, dried off, and moved to the couch. The different colors of the billboard she had missed danced across the room. She sat with her back pressed against his chest again, a blanket draped over their warm bodies, and they lay there together, basking in the comfort of silence.

She could easily fall asleep like this.

Matt caught onto her exhaustion and started to run his fingers through her wet curls. “I’m so glad you came back,” he said.

“I’m glad you took me back,” she said.

He chuckled, “I considered not to when I heard you get out of that cab, but the things you said… no one’s ever paid this much attention to me before.”

His eyes looked sharp and steady in the empty parts of her.

“I’m sorry for all that I did to you. If I dealt with my feelings earlier, none of this would have happened.” Her hands stilled their movements, instead curling her fingers around the sleeve of his shirt. “I should have realized that I was in love with you sooner.”

“You were going through something. That doesn’t make it okay, but I understand what it’s like, and it never made me think twice about my feelings for you.”

“That’s one of the things I love about you,” she said. “Your ability to forgive people. I did terrible things…”

“Under the control of trauma,” he cut her off. “That’s not the same as acting out of your own free will, I told you that.”

“No, I… I did some things after you were gone. I completely lost myself and I don’t think eight hours of therapy managed to fix everything.”

“We can work on that.”

“It’s gonna be a lot of work.”

He shrugged. “I’m fine with that.”

“Matt, you have to understand, I…” Eliza closed her eyes. She thought about not telling him, but it wouldn’t have been fair. “I am an addict,” she said.

“I know that,” he said.

“No, I mean, I am an addict.”

She hoped he got the hint.

His eyebrows furrowed as he thought about her words. “What do you mean?”

“It means I stole a bottle of morphine after you left and took it with me.”

His grip around her shoulders tightened. Matt placed his head in the crook of her neck, eyes closed, and he exhaled hotly against her skin. “I know,” he said.

“You know?” She stammered. “What? How?”

“The marks on your arms,” his finger traced over the crook of her elbow and she instantly withdrew her arm, embarrassed about how obvious the reddened spots were from the lack of treatment, “I felt them while we were in the tub. I didn’t want to say anything because it was not my place, but I knew when I felt them. But they’re more than three days old and your heart sounds normal, so that tells me you’ve been clean since then.”

“Because Fury stole my drugs. If he hadn’t found out, I think I would still be using. I… I wouldn’t have realized what I truly felt for you. I was destroying myself,” her voice cracked and he only held on tighter, “I was purposely hurting myself and if Maria hadn’t snitched on me, I’m sure that I wouldn’t be here right now.”

Matt pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. “But you are here right now, that means you want to get better,” he said.

“I do. I want to get better.”

“See? We can do this. I’m here for you, every step of the way.”

She nodded.

“I don’t see colors anymore.” Eliza exhaled shakily, looking up to prevent the inevitable from happening. “I touch you and I feel nothing. I walk around and I feel no emotions in the air except for my own. It’s just... gone.”

“What about your other powers?” he asked. “Are they gone too?”

“No,” she answered without missing a beat.

She could feel them pulsating underneath her skin, constantly reminding her of their existence, of their power and what they were capable of. The stone was sending her clear signals now. Eliza felt whole with it, like she was finally at peace with the energy she had long called a stranger.

“They’re always there, even when I don’t want them to be. I haven’t used them since… because I’m scared, but they’re there. I can feel them loud and clear. They’re a part of me now. Can’t do anything but let them in.”

His hand found its way around his throat, feeling her pulse underneath his fingers. The gesture wasn’t sexual, he was simply holding her, and she slowly calmed down.

“I love you,” she whispered.

He chuckled into her ear, “It feels so good to hear you say that.”

“Please, say it back.”

“I love you too.” His other hand stroked her arm. Goosebumps followed in the wake of his touch, spreading all over her body, but in a good way.

“Thank you.”

“When will you finally believe that I’m telling the truth when I say it?”

“When I’ve figured out what it’s like to love and be loved. Might take a while. I’m a little fucked up.”

She felt him shrug behind her. “Everyone’s a little fucked up,” he stated. “Doesn’t make you any less of a person.”

The words lay on the top of her tongue. He was seemingly the only person she could tell everything to and he would never hate her. He would never lie to her. He was the most honest person she had ever met, and he cared more about the truth than lying. It could have been the catholic in him, but she was sure that he was more than that. He had been lied to many times before, he refused to do the same to other people. That and he was taught that lying is a sin. Growing up in a catholic orphanage does a lot of things to a person.

She sucked in the air through her nose. The unshed tears still managed to stuff her nostrils with unnecessary snot, and it made her tear up again. She was vulnerable and fragile, and for the first time, she allowed herself to admit it. She was broken and needed help. She needed therapy. She needed to deal with whatever the hell was wrong with her. If not for her, she had to do it for him.

And she had to apologize to her family because she said terrible things to them too, things they didn’t deserve, even after lying to her. They swore to always protect her. By pushing away all of her feelings, she refused to let the truth get to her, and so she lashed out at them. She was too fragile, they were right. The truth tore her apart from the inside, and she only now started to feel the whole effect of it.

The pain paralyzed her.

Matt realized that she was holding back tears and he frowned. Her breathing changed, growing more erratic. “My father died,” she choked out.

“What?” he asked.

“I know I sold him out, but he was there. He was the man at the gala who caused the commotion to get us into the elevator unnoticed. He knew I’d use him as bait for Hydra, so he came prepared. He risked his life by escaping and trying to tear Hydra down from the inside while also buying me valuable time, and he sacrificed himself in the process.”

His eyes fluttered. He groaned quietly. “That’s who Natasha was talking about,” he muttered.

Eliza turned only enough to look at him. “What?”

“Natasha said something about getting help before she told us about the bombs. I was a bit caught up fighting the guys you left me with, but I heard her say something. I didn’t think much of it… God, if I had, I would have told you.”

She caressed his face. The drumming of his heart against her back told her he wasn’t lying. He taught her that. Her lips pressed to his cheek, thankful for his honesty, thankful she didn’t have to worry that he would ever keep anything from her.

He turned his head suddenly, capturing her lips once again and she chuckled at his eagerness. The first tear fell. He caught it with his finger, wiping it away.

Now that she said it, the fact that Anton was dead became reality. She could no longer deny it. He was dead, gone, and would never come back. She was an orphan now. No mother, no father, just her alone in the world. No blood relations, nothing. All because she had to pull him into a fight he didn’t sign up for. She still hated him for what he did to her, but she finally understood why he decided to give her away, and that made her hate him just a little less.

“He’s dead,” she breathed, “and I didn’t even get to tell him that there is a chance I might forgive him…”

He cradled her like a child to his chest. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

She whimpered, pressing her face into his shirt.

“Let’s have a funeral.”

Her sobs eased up. “What?”

“I strongly believe that without a funeral, the soul is just floating around somewhere, waiting to be laid to rest… you said you wanted to forgive him and I think he knows that, even in death. You don’t even have to be religious. I can get father Lantom to make it as inclusive as possible. I’ve heard him do it before. I’m sure he’d be more than willing to do it for your father too.”

“I can’t go to another parent’s funeral,” she cried.

He squeezed his eyes shut so tightly, the vein on his forehead poked out. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I know that it hurts.”

“I just can’t believe that I just found him and now he’s already dead again. I never wanted him to die. That’s the last thing I wanted.”

“I know, sweetheart. I know.”

“He died for me.”

“He made that choice, it’s not your fault.”

“I wanted to have the chance to say goodbye, at least,” she hiccuped, “because I didn’t get to say goodbye to my mom. I didn’t even get to meet her. My father… he raised me for five years, that’s better than nothing, so a part of me does love him. Knowing he’s dead is just… it makes me feel empty and angry and overall guilty.”

“Look at it this way,” Matt tilted her cheek up so she would look at him, “He loved you, or else he wouldn’t have done what he did. He always had your best interest in mind, even though he fucked up, badly. He tried to make it up to you by taking down Hydra. That has to be worth something.”

She swallowed, nodding. “It’s worth everything.”

“He loved you, Eliza. He was your father. It’s okay to be sad, to grieve, to want to bring him back just to punch him in the face for leaving you… It’s okay.”

Eliza’s eyes softened when a tear of his own trickled down his face and got caught in his beard. She stroked over it, feeling the wetness. She felt guilty for bringing it up. He went through the same thing when he was just nine years old. Her story triggered the cruel memories of the past to crawl back to the surface. And yet, he only thought of taking care of her.

“It’s okay,” she told him.

Now her eyes looked sharp and steady into the empty parts of him.

“I know it is,” he whispered, “it’s just a lot right now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t apologize. This is your time to grieve, not mine.”

“Or we could grieve together.” She smiled.

He chuckled. “Yeah, I guess we could.”

She wiped her cheeks. Eliza made a decision. “I want the funeral,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And he’s already been cremated by a bomb, so we don’t have to worry about that.”

Matt stared blankly ahead. He wasn’t sure how to react. Was he supposed to laugh? Comfort her?

She grinned back at him. “You know, ‘cause he burned to death, so he’s already in ashes,” she repeated. “It’s supposed to be a joke.”

“Oh, my God.”

“It’s okay, you can laugh.”

“I don’t… wow!” He allowed himself to snort, which resulted in him turning his chuckle into a soft laugh. “You have the weirdest response to trauma, do you know that?” he asked.

Eliza shrugged, “A little.” She broke off into a yawn.

He kissed her temple, suggesting, “We should go to bed. It’s late and you need the rest.”

“I still have to go fix some things back at SHIELD,” she said. “They’re probably wondering where I am.”

“You can do that tomorrow. You’re too tired to leave tonight. Stay with me.” He wrapped her arms around his neck, scooping his own underneath her thighs and hoisting her up into his arms.

She yelped when he stood up without a struggle, heading for the bedroom.

“You are so strong.”

“Thanks, I work out.”

“No kidding.”

He placed her down on the mattress gently, bunching the duvet and comforter up so she could slide under it. He joined her shortly, removing most of his clothes so his skin wouldn’t rub against them as he slept. The silk was more comfortable on bare skin anyway.

She laid her cold body atop his, tangling their legs together until you could no longer tell where one started and the other ended.

Her eyes switched up to his face. The blissed-out expression on his face was too beautiful not to memorize it.

“Thank you,” she broke the silence, “for everything.”

He brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m here for you, always,” he said.

“And that’s why I love you, Matthew. I love you.”

“I love you too, bug.”

She had missed that nickname. Eliza smiled almost giddily when she placed her head over his heart. No one could hurt her now. She was home, finally, and right where she was supposed to be.

Screaming in the name of a foreigner’s God is truly the purest expression of grief.

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bittersweet-in-boston · 2 years

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Zombie AU! B is a zombie and perfectly happy — or at least as happy as zombies get — riding out the apocalypse in his abandoned airport home and venturing out in search of human flesh and brains. And then he meets human Steve on a regular food run and everything changes.

#stucky #zombie bucky barnes #human steve rogers #grumpy smol steve #zombie au #natasha romanov #clint barton #zombie-typical violence #cannibalism #love at first chomp #zombie pining #bucky barnes needs a hug #and a heartbeat

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americanhoney913 · 2 years

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Chapters: 1/5 Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, WandaVision (TV), Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness - Fandom, Hawkeye (TV 2021), Marvel 616 Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Clint Barton & Wanda Maximoff, Clint Barton & Kate Bishop Characters: Wanda Maximoff, Clint Barton, Laura Barton, Kate Bishop, Billy Kaplan, Tommy Shepherd Additional Tags: Wanda Maximoff Needs a Hug, Hurt Wanda Maximoff, Wanda Maximoff Needs Therapy, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Post-Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (Movie), Healing, Wanda Maximoff in the Multiverse of Madness Summary:

But you can’t keep the ghosts out When you’re the one Who’s the haunted house And you can’t kick the ghosts out When you’re the one Who let them in --- Elk Tour Suite Part 5, Brian Stokes Mitchell

Wanda, broken and bleeding, shakes as she rips open the fabric of reality using the last of her power. She has no idea what's on the other side but she hopes for death. Feels as if she died the moment her boys ran away from her, eyes wide in terror; they’d run to help their mother, not her… a her from another universe with a softer face and softer magic and fingertips gentle as she touches them to make sure they’re okay. Not stained black with dark magic.

Wanda, after the destruction of the Temple of Chthon, wishes for death but finds refuge instead.

#wanda maximoff #doctor strange #doctor strange in the multiverse of madness #fanfic #mcu #clint barton #Kate Bishop #hawkeye #wanda maximoff needs a hug #wanda maximoff needs therapy #post multiverse of madness #wanda maximoff in the multiverse of madness

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myfictionaldreams · 10 months

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Accidents Happen // Mafia!Stucky x Fem!Reader

Summary: You were visiting a friend when you were accidentally hit in the face, leaving behind a cut across your cheekbone. How will Steve and Bucky react when they see their girl injured?

Requested by: @theatrelove3000 (thank you so much for the message! I hope your eye is doing better and I hope you enjoy this fic)

Tags: 18+ readers only, smut, fluff, angst, hurt/comfort, hints of winter solider, minor injuries/reader is injured, protectiveness, possessive behaviour, anxiety, pool sex, butt plugs, anal/vaginal sex, double penetration, handjob, multiple orgasms, sir kink, praise kink, size kink, bucky needs a hug, mentions of murder, not beta read

Words: 6.4k

my masterlist 📚 AO3 Link

Making friends whilst being in close connection with the mafia was both easy and difficult. Easy because you meet hundreds of new people every month and difficult because many of them were dangerous and untrustworthy. On the rare occasion, a friendship would be created and even though you were busy nearly every day for the gang, you still attempted to spend time with them.

Especially on special days such as your best friend’s baby's birthday. You’d met Laura Barton through her husband Clint, whom you’d met through Natasha. The two of you instantly bonded over having partners in dangerous jobs and if you ever needed a break, she’d always welcome you to her home with a hot drink ready and the kids running rampant which was a great distraction.

Today, it was her youngest, Nate’s 2nd birthday so you’d spent the afternoon celebrating with cakes and toys with the family. By early evening, you were the only one remaining, finally having time to cuddle with the toddler who was playing with the plastic toy train that you’d bought him as a present.

“What time are you and the boys leaving for the hotel?” Laura asked in between bites of vanilla cake.

Your head flew back to avoid the wild swing of Nate’s tiny arm as he continued to play with the toy, making little noises with his mouth that made you smile. “Um, I think around 7, it’ll only take us half an hour to drive there but I can’t wait! Even though we are going for work, the hotel is stunning, and of course, Steve had to buy the best room, I think we’ve even got our own private pool”.

Laura’s eyebrows raised, letting out a low whistle, “They really do live a life of luxury. If they ever want to treat Clint and me to a weekend away any time soon I’d be forever in their debt”.

You laughed at your friend, “I’ll see what I can do”. Turning to look at Nate and poking the tip of his nose, “Do you think mommy deserves a trip away?” As you asked, you made the grave mistake of not watching his arm and there's one thing about toddlers, it was that they were surprisingly strong as he swung the train toy and accidentally smacked you in the face with it. “Oof, ok I’m taking that as a no”.

“Shit! Are you ok? Nate be careful”, Laura chastised to her son as she took him into her arms.

“It’s ok, he didn’t mean it, I’m fine”.

“You aren’t fine, you’re bleeding!” Laura was looking at you with wide eyes.

You were still slightly in shock, trying to remain calm to not scare Nate but you couldn’t deny it, your face was throbbing. Excusing yourself, you rushed to the bathroom and glanced into the mirror. “Shit, the boys are going to go crazy”. The toddler had managed to hit you right underneath your eye, the sharp corner had cut the skin and the surrounding area was already swelling and felt tender. Sighing to yourself, you cleaned the bleeding cut, thankfully it wasn’t deep enough for stitches and the bleeding had stopped already but with the location, you knew you’d probably end up with a black eye over the next day or so.

After you finished cleaning up, you spent a couple of minutes contemplating what the fuck you were going to say to Steve and Bucky. There wasn’t any way you’d be able to hide it with makeup and there wasn’t anything they hated more than seeing you hurt and you knew an overreaction was coming your way. Should you call them or tell them in person? At least in person, you could stop them from running off on a vengeance before you could even explain what had happened so decided you’d wait to tell them.

Leaving the bathroom, you found Laura waiting anxiously with the kids all playing in another room. She took one look at your face before mumbling, “Shit. Does this make me number one on the Rogers mafia hit list?” she joked but you knew she was also slightly serious.

Walking closer to your friend, you took her hands and grinned, even though the action hurt your cheek. “Not it doesn’t, it’s absolutely fine, the boys love Nate they’ll forgive him for anything. I should probably go through, face the music now rather than waiting around”.

You called Sam to pick you up and he text you once outside. Giving Laura and the kids a big hug, you reassured her once more that everything would be ok before leaving her house and walking down the path to the parked SUV with Sam in the driving seat. As you saw him, you waved happily, trying to appear as at ease as possible to keep the tension calm.

However, the moment you were close enough for him to notice the injury to your face, his smile dropped, eyebrows frowning as he hastily got out of the car, rushing to you. “Sam it’s fine-”.

“Who did this to you?” he asked urgently, hands cupping your jaw and tilting your face so he could examine your cut closely. Sam’s face was contorted into anger, something rarely displayed by your bodyguard and friend as he usually likes to be sarcastic and funny when around you.

Lifting your hands, you held onto his wrists, trying to pull him away but he held strong having not finished checking your injury. “Nate accidentally hit me with his toy train… A TODDLER hit me Sam so please relax”.

Thankfully he did. The tension in his shoulders eased as well as the frown on his face. Eyes still flicking across the cut, he instructed, “Tell me when it starts to hurt”. Carefully, he pressed his fingers across your face, inching towards the wound and you informed it where it began to be tender, so he knew just had big the injury was and how bruised it was beneath the swelling. It took a couple of minutes before he seemed somewhat at ease about the injury, finally looking away from the injury to look at the rest of your face before the corner of his lip turned up, “so a baby hurt you this much, huh?”

You couldn’t help but laugh, gently pushing against his shoulder, “Yes! He’s stronger than he looks and yes, I am very embarrassed so please never bring it up again”.

Sam laughed as well, placing his arm over your shoulder and turning the two of you back towards the car. “Oh, you know I’m going to bring it up at any opportunity right?”

Rolling your eyes, you climbed into the car, pulling your seatbelt across your front as he did the same in the driver’s seat. “I could just have Steve or Bucky demand you to never bring it up again”, you suggested unseriously.

Sam’s smile faltered as he began to drive the two of you to the office, “I’m assuming you’ve not told either of them yet? Feel like we need to call everyone in to try and keep them both calm, they’re going to go apeshit when they see you”.

Sighing heavily, you had to refrain from wiping your face. “I thought about calling them but I know they wouldn't listen to me after I’ve told them about it so decided it was better to tell them in person. I just hope that it doesn’t ruin our trip away, I mean, maybe they’ll be calm because it was a baby, there will be no need to go on a vengeance tour of Brooklyn”.

Sam looked towards you with an awkward smile and that’s all you needed to see to know that was most likely not going to happen today.

Arriving at the warehouse, you tried to ignore the glances from other gang members when they noticed the cut to your face, a tension quickly building in the atmosphere which only meant your anxiety increased. You tried to smile at everyone to ease the nerves but it didn’t seem to work. It was only as you and Sam walked into the elevator and it was just the two of you did you release a deep, aggravated groan.

“I’m screwed aren’t I”, you say, glancing at Sam as he rolled up his sleeves like he was preparing for a fight.

“You aren’t screwed, I think you’re the only one who is actually safe”, he reminded you as the doors opened to the corridor to Steve’s office. The two of you walked at a slow pace, your head hanging low so that you didn’t see Steve and Bucky’s bodyguard waiting outside of the closed office door.

“Who died?” Natasha joked, seeing the solemn reaction from you both. Your head snapped up to her, about to reassure her that everything was fine but the words floated away as her grin instantly dropped at seeing your cheek. “What happened?” she asked in an authoritative tone, closing the gap with a single step, hands gripping your face much like Sam had.

Trying to keep your voice as steady and as calm as possible, you explained, “Little Nate decided the toy train had better use on my face than in the normal way”.

It took Natasha longer than usual to believe you, only accepting it as she glanced towards Sam who nodded his head and let go of your face. “Well… we’re all in for a long night then”, she joked but this time there was a hint of warning in her tone.

“Don’t say that, you should have seen what it was like downstairs”. You took a deep breath before continuing, “It’s going to be absolutely fine. I’m going to walk in there, explain to them that a toddler hit me in the face, let them have a little freakout and then we are all going to remain calm and continue with our trip away and it’s all going to be fine”. Niehter Sam or Natasha seemed convinced so you sighed once more, chewing on your bottom lip with nerves. Shaking your head, you rolled your shoulders to try and look as unbothered as possible, “I need to get this over and done with. If either of them leaves, could you follow them please and make sure they don’t do anything stupid”.

“We can try our best, boss lady”, Sam responded for the two of them, walking towards the office door and holding it open for you.

Taking a deep breath, you walked into Steve’s office, seeing both of them sitting at the large oak desk that was positioned in the centre of the room, laptops in front of them, face set with concentration. As your mouth opened to announce your arrival and quickly explain what had happened before they could freak, Steve’s eyes had already glanced away from his screen.

“What the fuck!” he growled, standing with such force his seat toppled over as he stormed towards you. “Who did this to you? What happened?” Steve was in front of you within half a second, his hands cupping your face, eyes full of a whirlwind of seething anger, worry and concern.

“Please don’t freak out, it’s absolutely fine, it was just an accident”, you managed to say as your face was turned in different directions by Steve as if the size of the cut would change but it remained the same. As Steve finished his inspection, Bucky was right there over his shoulder, eyes full of fury as he too checked the cut but then continued further past just your face.

“Accident or not, I’m fucking killing someone”, Bucky barked, lifting your arms and searching for any more injuries and it was only as he lifted the front of your shirt did you push his hands away and take a step back.

“Both of you just wait, please. Absolutely no killing is happening because it was done by a two-year-old” you emphasised, not sure if they were even listening as they crowded around you. Placing a hand on either of their chests, you tried not to concentrate on the pounding of both of their hearts beneath your palms as you explained. “I was sitting with Nate, he was playing with his toy train that he loves by the way. I happened to get too close and didn’t see him swinging the toy and it caught me across the face and let me tell you, that boy is strong!”

You grinned to show the humour, looking between Steve and Bucky, waiting for any sort of reaction from them. Both sets of ocean-blue eyes were flicking from your mouth to your injury and just as you were able to explain again to them, it was Steve who moved first by cupping your jaw with his hand, this time it felt more comforting rather than him assessing you.

“Right let me just make sure I’m understanding this, Nate hit you in the face with the toy that you bought him and caused this much damage?”, he tilted your chin as he finished his sentence to show off your injury more.

“Yes that is exactly what happened. You can check with Sam if you want. Nate is a lot stronger than you’d expect someone so small to be”.

Steve nodded whilst taking a deep breath to try and calm himself down but his heart was still pounding under your hand. Leaning down, he kissed your forehead, showing his understanding of the situation. “How does it feel? Does it hurt?” he questioned, his blonde eyebrows furrowing in concentration.

“It feels tender and bruised but only when I touch it and I can see the swelling out of the corner of my eye but otherwise it’s fine. I’ve had worse that’s for sure”, you tried to once again defuse the tension with a little joke but all it caused was Bucky’s jaw to tighten.

Steve noticed too and suggested, “Why don’t you go and wait by the car baby, we just need to wrap up everything here and we can start heading to the hotel

It was a simple idea but put you on edge with worry as Bucky had yet to say anything or snap out of the protective trance. Instead of arguing with Steve, you nodded, knowing that Steve could handle Bucky when he was like this and it was best to leave the two of them to it.

Stepping out of the office, you released a long heavy breath, now facing Natasha and Sam who were waiting in a stance like they were ready to tackle someone but relaxed seeing that it was you. Glancing over your shoulder, they were surprised when no one else followed after you. “Everything ok, Sugar?” Natasha questioned uncertainly.

“I’m not entirely sure. I think Steve’s ok but Bucky… he didn’t say a word to me. I think they’re having a talk so I’ve been sent to the car like a naughty child”. Sam chuckled, finally stepping forward and holding his elbow out for you to take.

“Well let then me escort you to the car m’lady”, he mocked and managed to pull a smile to your lips as you accepted.

It took nearly 45 minutes for them to finish whatever talk that needed to happen, and you’d hoped that Bucky would rush to the car but it was quite the opposite. He inclined for Sam to get out of the car and they spoke out of sight.

Sam wouldn’t be coming with you to the hotel, it was just supposed to be you and the boys so you waved to him in farewell as he climbed out of the car. Steve then slide in next to you, closing the gap in the middle so his body brushed against yours as you blinked up at him with a worried expression. Once again, his hand slide along your jaw as he kissed your temple. “You know I hate seeing you hurt”, he admitted against your skin before pulling back and looking at you with an apologetic gaze.

“I understand that, but that doesn’t mean you have to shut me out”, you countered, lifting your hand to stroke along his stubbled cheek.

“It doesn’t”, he contemplates. “But, I also don’t want you to see me in this state, the things going through my mind when I saw your face, I was just about ready to kill everyone in this building to find out what happened. No one hurts what’s mine”.

Your heart was thumping hard in your chest at his passionate declaration. “Yes, but that doesn’t mean you have to push me away. I know you don’t want to see me hurt but accidents happen and if there was something wrong, you know I would call you immediately”.

Steve’s eyes softened, “Yes I know that now but, it doesn’t stop the panic that I feel when I see you’re hurt”.

Shifting even closer so that you could kiss his cheek, you continued, “I’m sorry for scaring you, it’s hard to tell you when these things happen, I don’t know whether I should call to prewarn or wait to see you in person”.

Steve’s lips lowered to yours, giving you a quick kiss to your lips, “We’ll figure it out”.

“What about Bucky?” you asked nervously.

“Buck might need a little more time, he’s still struggling to process his emotions”.

This did little to ease your anxiety, especially as the said man got into the driver's seat and didn’t say a single word to you, only glancing at you from the rearview mirror for a moment before beginning the drive to the hotel.

Steve easily managed to fill the silence with natural conversations which did little to distract you from the nerves of Bucky not talking. Even when the three of you arrived at the hotel and were shown to the penthouse where you’d be staying, Bucky didn’t say a word. After a quick tour of the breathtakingly beautiful surroundings which included a kitchen, living room area and pool that overlooked the city, you decided to go and freshen up.

After returning in a flowing dress that felt more comfortable than the jeans and shirt, you looked for the boys but only found Steve who was leaning against the kitchen island, staring at a spot in deep thought. “Steve?” this snapped him out of his trance as he instantly looked at you, standing to his full height. “Where’s Bucky?” you continued to look around but didn’t see him and by the look on Steve’s face, you knew you wouldn’t find him. “Where is he?”

“He said he needed a moment so has gone to the bar a few floors below”. Your shoulders dropped hearing this, feeling awful that he was struggling so much. “He’ll be ok sweetheart, he just has his own demons that he’s trying to fight with at the moment, you know the sort of headspace he gets into when you’re hurt”.

“I know but I haven’t seen him like this for a while, I guess I thought that side of him was over”. Sometimes when Bucky was overtly stressed with work, or needed to protect someone, particularly with regards to work, it was almost like his mind would shut down and someone else would take over. It was hard for him to deal with especially as he tended to get his emotions out violently when like this but as he hasn’t had an outlet today, he felt the need to separate himself from everyone. You knew he would never hurt you, even when he was like this so you asked Steve, “What floor is the bar on?”

Steve walked down with you and you both found him sitting on a stool in front of the bar with a very large glass of dark liquor on the bar in front of him. Steve decided to stay back and let you talk to him considering his talk earlier seemed to have done nothing to help him but reassured if you needed anything just nod.

As you walked towards Bucky, you thought about what you were going to say but your mind seemed to be completely empty of thoughts as you were so anxious you felt nauseous. Stepping next to him, he made no move to look in your direction or acknowledge your arrival and continued to stare forward. Every single muscle in his body was tense, eyes blazing with a look that you hadn’t seen in eyes like he was figuring out a way to murder everybody in the room. Your eyes flicked over his face, noting his jaw was so tense it looked like it was going to break. Unsure whether to touch him or not when he was like this, you said the only words that sprung to mind: “I miss you”.

Bucky’s entire body shifted, all of the tension seemingly melting away like a reset button had been pressed, as his eyes softened their glare as he flicked them to finally look at you. Seeing the change in him and drawing his attention, you reached across him to grip his metal hand, lifting it up to your face and reeling in the recognisable coolness of the metal against your uninjured cheek.

Turning to kiss the metal palm, you repeated, “I miss you Bucky”. There was even further relief when the pad of his thumb stroked across your cheekbone. Your boyfriend doesn't say a word, he didn’t need to as he stood from the stool, towering over you as he wrapped both of his arms around your shoulders, pulling you flush against his chest, his face nuzzling into your neck, taking a deep breath against your skin which seemed to also calm him further.

You hugged him back just as fiercely, eyes squeezing tight as you clung to the back of his shirt, probably crinkling the expensive material but neither of you cared. After a couple of minutes, he finally began to pull back enough that your arms could wind around his neck, pulling him down so you could kiss him passionately, ignoring the ache in your injured cheek from the movement.

His hands clenched around your waist at the kiss until you pulled back but that was only so you could kiss his cheek repeatedly whilst whispering, “I’m so sorry I’ve scared you Bucky, everythings ok I promise but I need you to be here with me and Steve”.

Bucky didn’t say anything at first, his only response was a nod as his body continued to try and calm down from its heightened alertness. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity he said with as much passion as possible, “I’m sorry, I love you”.

“I know, it’s ok, I love you too Bucky, now let's go back upstairs and relax for the evening, ok?” he nodded his head in agreement, his hand clasped around yours as you pulled him towards Steve who smiled at the two of you.

In the elevator up to your floor, Steve turned to Bucky and placed a tender hand on the back of his head, pulling him roughly into his side, “It’ll be alright Buck”, he spoke tenderly into his ear before kissing him on the side of his head. The sight had your chest warming at the intimate show of support from the mafia leader but your thoughts didn’t dwell as the elevator dinged to indicate arrival to the penthouse.

The three of you opened a bottle of champagne and watched the sunset over the city before you decided that it was time for the pool and needed a moment to get ready. As you stood in the bathroom, you decided to continue with the plan that you’d had since you knew you were coming here. Of course, when travelling anywhere, especially somewhere this beautiful, you would want to be intimate with them both and you were hoping to take them both at the same time. So, you had decided to prep yourself a little bit with the use of your favourite butt plug and then when the three of you were ready, they could simply take it out and save the time of prepping.

It took a few minutes to work inside of you but you were happy to see the jewel gleaming from within your arse cheeks and then continued to dress into your swimsuit. You looked somewhat ridiculous with the stunning swimsuit and swollen cut to the face but it would have to do as you finally exited the bathroom.

Bucky turned to you first, hearing your footsteps as you approached the edge of the water but it was his raised eyebrow and deadpan expression that had you faltering. “What?” you asked, looking down at yourself and wondering what was out of place.

“Doll, seriously? We have our own private pool and you still think to change into a swimsuit?” Your cheeks warmed at the realisation that both Steve and Bucky were completely nude in the water and with a small smile, began to remove your own swimsuit which captivated Steve and Bucky’s attention, especially as you revealed your breasts.

As the material gathered at your waist, you turned on the spot so they were looking at your back, you bent forward to fully remove the outfit but it also gave them the perfect view of your arse with the butt plug on display.

“Fuck”, Steve cursed under his breath as he moved towards the stairs just as you began to walk over, holding out his hand for you to take and carefully descend into the water, being careful not to splash your face too much in the process. The water was the perfect warm temperature and it felt so relaxing to be almost weightless as Steve pulled you easily through the water you couldn’t reach the floor like he could, until you were near the edge, looking out over the city with Bucky on the other side of you.

The three of you huddled close together, your arms holding onto the edge of the pool, enjoying the ambience and serene moment of blissful quiet. However, Bucky couldn’t keep himself restrained for long as his hours of not seeing or touching you were beginning to get to him. Sliding behind you, his arms crowding you closer to the pool edge, his lips kissed delicately below your ear, moving south down your neck and to your shoulder. You tilted your head to the side to give him more room, releasing a soft breath at the tingling sensations his lips were causing, especially as his stubble brushed against your skin.

“You’re so beautiful”, Steve admired from beside you, his words making your cheeks flush with warmth at the compliment.

“Even with a black eye”, Bucky joked from where he was kissing the top of your back. You let out a shocked laugh, attempting to elbow him in the ribs but he easily held your arm away as he chuckled. The noise and joke were welcomed from him though to know he had calmed down enough from the initial shock of seeing you injured. “Could I make one request for tonight?” Bucky enquired, returning to kiss the pulse point on your neck.

“Yes?” you asked, already sounding a little breathless as you lazily moved your legs through the water, still holding your weight up by holding onto the edge.

“Don’t hold your noises in tonight, even though we are outside, I want this whole damn city to hear you”, Bucky grunted as he thrust his hips against your lower back, making you feel his considerably hard cock. Once again, your body warmed thoroughly at the thought of those a few floors below potentially hearing through their open windows but that also turned you on, knowing people could hear how much your boyfriends were making you feel good.

Nodding your head in answer, Bucky’s hands began to graze over your stomach under the water, stroking near your hip where you had a particularly sensitive spot that had you shivering and leaning further into him.

Steve’s hand cradled your chin, turning your face towards him where he began to kiss you desperately, his tongue immediately teasing the seam of your mouth to gain access that you granted instantly. You moaned as his warm muscle twisted with yours, loving the dominance of the kiss as he easily stood over you in the pool with his tall stature.

Bucky’s metal fingers then began to do their own exploration as they travelled between your legs, first stroking over your pussy lips, giving you a little warning for his next movement before he pressed more firmly until he was rubbing your clit. He moved in slow circles, and your hips jerked at the action, more moans rumbling from the back of your throat and into Steve’s mouth.

The blonde man pulled back first, breathing heavily as he instructed, “What I want you to do is take Bucky and after you cum, we’re going to fuck you at the same time, understand?”

“Yes, sir”, you automatically responded, your arousal aching in your core.

“Good girl”, Bucky praised as he shifted his position but continued to play with your clit as he moved. His lower half moved further beneath you so your body was moved a little out of the water, revealing your breasts to the cool air as you balanced on his body. The tip of his cock nudged against his fingers at the apex of your thighs, and with a flick of his hips, it moved to your hole. Even though you were in the water, he still took his time, being careful to not move too quickly as he stretched your cunt. Each inch that moved in had you gasping and moaning, grabbing tightly onto Steve’s arm that shot out to support your body from toppling forward. “That’s it, you’re taking me so well, Doll”, Bucky continued to encourage you as soon his hips were flush against yours which meant that he subtly pressed against the plug in your arse which only added to the heightened pleasure.

“Feels so good Bucky”, you say, closing your eyes for a moment to try and savour the feelings but then they snapped open as Steve began to squeeze your nipples. Your back arched into the touch, loving the twists and pulls he was doing to them that sent shivers straight to your centre which only meant that you kept clenching around Bucky.

After what felt like an eternity, Bucky finally began to move, slowing his fingers at your clit to match the pace of his thrusting. Each snap of his hips would cause the plug to be pushed and even his cock within your pussy was brushing against it, you already felt so full and you only had one cock in you. The motions increased as Bucky nuzzled into the back of your neck, the water surrounding the three of you splashing over the edge.

As you got used to the position and pleasure that was being pounded throughout your body, you felt aware enough to reach into the water and grip Steve’s throbbing shaft. It floated in the water and you could feel it bob at your touch as well as Steve’s very audible gasp. He always did love it when you pleasured him so even though Bucky’s cock and fingers were very distracting, you attempted to try and also make Steve feel as good as you felt.

“Fuck, I love the feeling of your hands on me baby”, Steve grunted, thrusting into your palm as you squeezed harder, moving up and down the shaft in time with Bucky’s cock. Steve’s eyes closed, head tipping back as he fell into the pleasure, but his hands never stopped with both supporting your upper half and squeezing your breasts whilst tweaking the nipples.

Bucky moved faster now, feeling your pussy clenching harder around him, his fingers swiping back and forth in firm motions. You didn’t even need to tell him that you were going to cum, from the feeling around his cock and the sweet moans escaping your mouth, he knew you were close. He fucked you harder which meant your hand moved faster up Steve’s shaft.

“Oh-God, yes!”, you chanted, eyes closed as you squeezed Steve’s cock hard as the pleasure took over you, Bucky not stopping his thrusts as you came, extending the length of your orgasm as he continued. All until Steve quickly cursed and grabbed your wrists, pulling your hands away from him did your pussy stop fluttering as you looked at him in worry. “Did I hurt you?” you asked, realising that you were probably squeezing too hard.

Steve chuckled, a light pink shade tinging his cheeks as he shook his head, “No baby, you were going to make me cum if you carried on like that”.

“Oh”, was all you managed to say as you felt proud of yourself for making him nearly cum so quickly.

Bucky laughed under his breath at your reaction, kissing the back of your head before easing his cock out and wrapping his arm around your waist so he could move you further away from the wall, giving Steve room to move in front of you. Both of your hands moved to his muscular shoulders, holding on as Steve pulled both of your legs around his waist, the waterline now at your navel.

Bucky's warm hand massaged one of your arse cheeks as he instructed, “Relax for me, Sweetheart”. You made sure to ease all of your muscles down as he gripped onto the butt plug and began to slowly pull it out. You gasped loudly at the feeling of your hole stretching around the toy before relief as it moved past the thickest part.

Bucky dropped the plug, declaring that he’d retrieve it from the bottom of the pool later and began lining up his cock at your asshole. You mewled into Steve’s shoulder as you felt the thick tip breaching your hole, the stretch was just as intense as the other hole but he moved slower this time, making sure not to hurt you.

“You’re so tight, shit”, Bucky groaned as you took his length, his hands flexing against your hips as you tried to adjust to him. After a long moment, you nodded your head against Steve and felt him moving his hips, the tip of his cock now penetrating your cunt, slowly but from the fucking by Bucky, it didn’t take you as long to adjust.

As they both were fully inserted into your holes, you let out a desperate moan, feeling so full it was nearly overwhelming. Your thighs were shaking in Steve’s grip around his waist and you wanted to speak to tell them how good it felt but your tongue felt heavy in your mouth so you told them through moans and mewling noises.

Steve moved first, pulling out a few inches before moving back in. Then Bucky copied his action. Both of your boyfriends fucked you, their thick cocks stroking against every single nerve and with the way your legs were wide and spread to be wrapped around Steve, your clit was brushing against his abdomen.

Your head dropped back against Bucky’s shoulder and you had to refrain from hissing as you accidentally brushed the injury of your face against his stubble. However, with the overwhelming pleasure that was being fucked into you, you didn’t vocalise the momentary discomfort and simply turned your face away so it didn’t happen again.

With how much you were being stimulated, it didn’t take you long to orgasm again, your body tightening like a coil around both of their cocks as waves of pleasure pulsed through you.

Bucky let out a deep groan and that was your only warning as he came suddenly, the feeling of your tight ass around his cock was too much for him and he was already so pent up from the day that he couldn’t hold it back anymore. His balls emptied everything within them into your ass, his teeth biting into the junction between your neck and shoulder as he grunted your name over and over until there was no more cum within his body.

You shivered as he pulled out, wishing you had a camera under the water to see the cum seeping out and clouding the water slightly. Bucky’s hands moved to under your thighs, taking them out of Steve’s grip as he took your weight instead so that Steve could fuck you without any restraint.

With your eyes half-lidded, you watched as Steve leaned forward, one hand on your waist and the other on Bucky’s shoulder, using the two of you to help ground him as he continued to fuck your pussy. With the more sturdy position, he was able to fuck you as hard as he could with the water adding some restraint so that he didn’t hurt you.

Your nails dug into his shoulders, leaving little crescent-shaped dents in the skin but he enjoyed the sparks of pain that came with it. “I want you to orgasm one more time for me baby, I know you can do it”.

You shouted out in pleasure at his words, hearing the desperation in his tone so you knew he was holding back from cumming because he wanted you to do it one more time. Steve fucked you, hard and fast, water splashing everywhere as Bucky continued to hold onto you tightly.

It didn’t take you long to cum again, especially as Steve dipped his head and began to suck on each of your sensitive nipples. By the time your pussy stopped pulsing around him and you were becoming entirely too overstimulated, Steve finally shouted and stilled his thrusting, his cock throbbing with each spurt of his cum as he filled you up.

The three of you took a couple of minutes to catch your breath and stretch your muscles from being in the squished position. “At least we’re in the water, don’t have as much of a clean up”, you joked as the cum mixed with the pool water. Bucky laughed before ducking into the water and returning with your butt plug.

“For you, hot mama”, he handed over the toy and kissed your cheek before helping you over to the stairs but swiftly picked you up with a steady hand at your back and under your knees. “Please tell me you two are hungry, once we’ve finished drying up, I’m ordering some room service”.

You groaned in a different sort of need from only a few minutes ago, your arms wrapping around his neck, “yes please, I’m starving after all of this activity!”

#mafia au #mafia stucky #stucky x reader #stucky smut #steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers smut #bucky #bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky smut #marvel one shot #marvel smut #mine*

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lynlee494 · 7 months

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The glaring mistake in Bucky Barnes’s plan so far, named Tony Stark, had for sure already alerted Clint and Natasha...

...and sure enough Clint does get a panicked call from Tony, who has to repeat himself twice and send the security footage before the archer can believe that Bucky Barnes had just killed two members of the Avengers. Clint swears he sees something there, and Clint Barton makes the choice to stay and try to persuade his friend to come with him to get help.

Clint thinks he knows where at least some of this mess may have started...

Stroking Bucky’s back in repetitive circles after clearing his airway, Clint had done for Bucky what Coulson used to do for him. Told Bucky where he was over and over as he heard the team over the comm – with all of them having sounded absolutely wrecked. Iron Man was out after Hulk, and the rest sounded physically unharmed.

So Clint had just sat there and wiped the sweat soaked hair out of Bucky’s face, and when Barton found himself at a loss for words he just began again from the beginning:

"I’m your friend. You are an Avenger, you are one of us. We had cold pizza for breakfast. You loved it."

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togrowoldinv · 11 days

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Drill Lessons

Natasha Romanoff x Female Reader

Natasha shows you how to use a power tool and your mutual crush comes to light

Warnings: Smut! 18+ please! Kissing, cursing, oral (N and R receiving)

Natasha Masterlist 1, Natasha Masterlist 2, Natasha Masterlist 3, Main Masterlist

To you, Natasha Romanoff is the most beautiful woman to ever walk the earth.

You’ve been wanting to tell her for months that you like her. Ever since you joined the team you’ve had feelings for her. But you can’t get a read on her.

You have no idea if she has feelings for you too. Sometimes it feels like she’s flirting with you but then you see or hear her act the same way with one of the guys and you brush it off as nothing.

This weekend Clint invited everyone to his farm to enjoy a quick getaway and clear your heads. Missions hadn’t been easy lately, so you all needed the reprieve.

When you arrive, Natasha walks in the house first. She’s clearly very comfortable here.

“Welcome!” Laura says to everyone. “Come on in. Make yourselves at home!”

“Thank you for having us, Mrs. Barton,” you say when you greet her.

“Oh please, called me Laura,” she says. Then she addresses everyone, “We don’t have enough rooms so you’ll have to share. Nat, can y/n sleep with you?”

You try not to have a visceral reaction to the idea. You hold your breath as you await her reply.

“Sure,” Nat simply says. She turns to you, “I’ll show you the way.”

You follow her up the stairs where you run across a couple of kids.

“Auntie Nat?” A girl asks, in shock of seeing Nat.

“Hey malyshka,” Natasha replies. She brings the girl in for a hug. “Lila, this is y/n. Hopefully you won’t discover you like her more than you like me.”

You smile and wave to Lila. She returns the smile before running off downstairs.

Nat takes you down the hallway and to what appears to be her bedroom when she stays here. There are photos of the Barton family and Nat on the dresser. You admire how happy she looks here.

“I always sleep on the door side, but we’ll do whatever you feel comfortable with,” Nat says.

“Oh, either side works for me.”

Nat nods. You set your bag down on the bed and unpack a few things. Natasha moves around the room, gathering a few of her own things.

You both go back downstairs for the rest of the evening. Nothing too eventful happens. Everyone makes plans to spend time outside tomorrow.

Natasha is first to the bedroom. She slips into the bed casually. You try to do the same but fail miserably at not looking nervous.

“I don’t bite, you know,” Nat says teasingly.

“Right,” you respond too quickly. “I just- sorry.”

“Relax, y/n,” she says. You settle on your side of the bed. “Goodnight.”

“Night, Natasha.”

You both drift off into a peaceful sleep. You first, and then Natasha.

At some point during the night, you end up snuggling close to Natasha. She wakes up to the feeling of your arm draping over her. But she doesn’t mind it. Actually, she likes it.

When you wake up in the morning, you find yourself still nestled in her arms.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” you say, trying to move off of her.

“Hey, it’s fine,” Nat says, only tightening her grip a bit before letting you loose. “So, you’re a cuddler, huh?”

You look away shyly and Nat just smirks. Now you definitely can’t believe you slept next to Natasha and accidentally snuggled with her all night. She doesn’t say anything else about it until you go downstairs for the day.

“Good morning!” Laura greets. She’s pulling fresh biscuits from the oven. “How did you sleep?”

“Good,” you answer briefly.

“She sure was cozy,” Nat interjects. It’s just Laura in the room with you two, but you still try to hold back a blush.

“Mhm, I’m sure,” Laura replies. Somehow you’re sure she knows the way you feel about Nat and how Nat feels about you.

Soon, the boys come tumbling into the kitchen. You all go outside to do your respective chosen activities. Steve promised to show you how to chop wood while Nat and Clint run off to the barn to build a new shelter for some of the animals.

“So, what’s the deal with you and Romanoff?” Steve asks after a few minutes of chopping the wood.

“Oh, is there- is there a me and Romanoff?”

“Is there not?” He asks genuinely. “I’m sorry. I just thought that you two- nevermind.”

“It’s okay,” you reply, shrugging.

It does leave you wondering if the other members of the team think something is happening there too. You try not to think about it too much as you continue to work outside. The fresh air does wonders for you.

Steve asks you to go grab the axe sharpening block from the barn, so you walk to the structure. When you get there, you catch sight of something that makes your jaw practically drop to the ground.

Natasha is wearing only a blank tank top and shorts are she uses a power drill to build a wooden structure. Sweat drips down her neck and chest as she expertly uses the tool.

You swear she catches the sight of you out of the corner of her eye, but she continues on with her drilling. She lifts heavy pieces of wood with ease. You can’t stop staring.

Nat lifts her tank top up to wipe the sweat from her face. You see her ab happy stomach and the sports bra that’s keeping the rest of her skin covered.

“Enjoying the view?” Nat says aloud. You’ve definitely been caught now.

“Oh, I was just-“ you start, but there’s no use. You were doing exactly that. “My bad.”

“Don’t apologize,” Nat says. “Come on in, what did you need?”

“We needed the axe sharpener block thing?”

“Is that a question?”

“Well, I don’t know what it is so yes?”

Nat chuckles. She turns to look at the shelf behind her for the tool you need. Her backside somehow looks just as good as her front.

“Here you go,” Nat says. She hands you the block. You are standing close to her now. “The real fun is happening in there though. I can show you how to use this.”

She gestures to the drill in her left hand, pressing her finger on the trigger to make it whir. You shouldn’t be so intrigued by it. Or by her for that matter. But you are.

“Maybe tomorrow you can show me?” You ask her.

“How about tonight?” Nat asks. Her voice drops an octave. You pray she means what you think she means.

You swallow shyly and Nat shoots you a smile. Slowly, you leave her there and go back to Steve. He doesn’t mention how long it took you to get the tool, thank goodness.

Later that day, you all grill out burgers and hotdogs. Clint tries to show off his grilling skills, but the team just gives him a hard time saying that it’s not all that hard anyways.

By the time evening comes, everyone’s sitting around a campfire. Natasha sits across from you. She glances at her phone and then to you as a way of alerting you to look at your phone.

The text reads: Meet me in the barn. 10 minutes.

You nod in her direction to acknowledge you got the message. The minutes pass by and you both leave to go to the barn.

When you get inside, Nat is already over by the wood she was working with earlier.

“Come on, I’ll show you,” Nat says.

“Okay,” you agree. You stand next to her.

“First things first, always know your surroundings,” Nat says.

She abruptly places her hands on your hips. She easily moves you to the right and left to observe your surroundings. Your heart stops when she reaches around you and her face is mere inches from yours.

She steps back and has a pair of clear glasses in her hand.

“And wear safety glasses,” she says. She places them on your face. You’re sure you look like an absolute fool. “Cute.”

“You didn’t wear these yesterday,” comes your reply.

“That’s because I’m an expert,” Nat says. She surprises you by pinching your cheeks. “You’ll get there, sweetheart.”

Natasha grabs the drill and ushers you to move closer to the wood with her. She takes you through step by step on how to use the power tool.

“Now, you can try,” Nat says.

“Okay,” you reply. You feel a little nervous about trying it. Nat assures you that you can’t mess it up.

You try to focus even with Nat being so close to you. For the first time using a drill, you don’t do terribly.

“Nice job, y/n,” Nat says. “But you’ll want to apply more pressure. Let me help you, sweetheart.”

Natasha places her hand on yours and pushes down on the drill. You pull the trigger and drill the screw into the wood. Her hot breath is on your neck.

You smile at your success and turn just enough to look at Nat. She’s just inches from you.

“Should we take this inside?” Nat asks. Her eyes glance to your lips and back up to your eyes. She brings her other hand to your cheek and brushes the back of it against it.

“Are you- um- yes?”

“Yes? Or yes.”

“The second one,” you say. Natasha smirks at you.

You leave the drill and safety glasses behind. Natasha holds your hand as she walks you to the house. You slip upstairs easily and she closes her bedroom door behind her.

“I’ve had my eye on you for a while,” Natasha says.

“Really?” You ask innocently.

“Really, detka. Come here,” she says, bringing you to the bed with her.

You sit next to her and she kisses you softly. It’s like floating on a cloud. You didn’t think she would be this gentle. But you’re loving it.

“May I?” Nat asks, gesturing to your shirt. You nod. She lifts the material over your head. “Beautiful.”

You feel sure you’re blushing at her words and the way her eyes rake over your body.

“Can I- um?” You pull at her tank top hem.

“Yes, baby,” Natasha says. “You can do anything to me.”

You lift the thin material over her head. Your heart stops at her beauty. You immediately lean forward and take her nipple into your mouth. It surprises Natasha how intentional you are being.

“Fuck, baby.”

“Is this okay?” You ask, pulling away a bit. Nat pulls your head back to her breasts. You’ll take that as a yes.

Natasha fumbles with your pants. She gets them unbuttoned but grumbles in frustration when she can’t get them off. You chuckle against her.

“Okay, hold on,” Nat says. She stands up and pulls her own pants down before grabbing you by the hips and pulling you up too.

Natasha takes your pants off with ease this time and slips them down your legs along with your underwear. She grins and drops to her knees. It doesn’t take her long to get to work licking and sucking at your pussy.

“Oh my god,” you moan out.

“You taste so good, baby. All for me,” Nat says.

“Fuck.”

You feel close to coming embarrassingly quickly but Natasha is proud of her work.

“Come for me, y/n,” she says. Her voice drips with sex.

“Fuck, Natasha!”

You come hard against her tongue. She licks you clean and stands back up. She kisses you deeply. It’s the most on fire you have ever felt.

“I want to taste you,” you tell Nat.

“Your wish is my command,” Nat says. She lays on the bed and you crawl over her body.

“So beautiful,” you say as you kiss from between her breasts down to her hips.

“You’re not so shy now are you?” Nat asks. You answer by diving into her wet pussy.

Her folds are slick and she’s ready for you. You lick and suck her, cherishing every noise she makes.

“Fuck, baby,” Nat says. “I’m going to come.”

“Come for me, Natasha.”

She does just that. You relish in the sounds she makes. You move back up her body and lay next to her.

“So, all of those times I thought you were flirting with me you actually were?” You break the silence.

Nat chuckles. “Yes, y/n. I’ve been hinting at it for months. I’m glad we finally got on the same page.”

She looks at you through her long eyelashes. You rest your head on her shoulder.

“I’ve always liked you, Natasha,” you say. “Do you think the team noticed we left?”

“Nah,” Nat says. “Even if they did, I don’t care. I have you.”

“You sure do.”

You snuggle further into Natasha. She holds you close as you lay together and talk for hours.

#natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff #soft natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff fluff #natasha romanoff comfort #natasha romanoff smut

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rebeliz7 · 11 days

Text

Dangerous

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Reader / Natasha Romanoff x Reader / Wanda Maximoff x Natasha Romanoff

Request: 32 & 64 prompts for Wanda or Natasha or maybe both😏

32. “If you interrupt me one more time, so help me god.”

64. “You’re not taking me to bed. ever.” “Who said it had to be on the bed?”

…

“If you interrupt me one more time, so help me God.” Natasha threatens you, annoyed and left eye twitching.

She’s not being serious, at least not entirely, but you still raise your hands in surrender and lean back in your seat.

However, her eyes stay firmly locked with yours, and you have to smile at how worked up she seems. She rolls her eyes when you smile, just like you were expecting her to, and the meeting moves along.

You weren’t interrupting her exactly, but it’s become intensely apparent that your presence annoys the hell out of Natasha. Whatever the reason.

Not that you go out of your way to annoy her, that’s not the case at all. The thing is, and you’ve been aware of this for a while now, you make her nervous. So nervous that she doesn’t know how to deal with you.

No one else seems to be aware of that little fact, although the entire Avengers Team lives together for the time being. But Natasha knows that you know, which makes her angry.

Irrationally so, you must say.

“She’s gonna get you one of these days.” Clint warns you in a low voice.

“Yeah, but not today.” You joke, and Clint laughs softly to himself.

“You don’t wanna push Nat. Trust me.”

“Oh I'm not worried, trust me.”

…

The meeting ends on a neutral note, since Sam and Bucky lost track of their target on their latest mission. A team needs to fly out to Mexico to lend a hand and things will get a move on again.

Steve and Clint are going, and so is Shuri. This is not Shuri’s first mission, but you take it upon yourself to get her as ready as she can be before they fly out.

She’s grown on you, in a 'younger sister' sort of way. You guess it's because she’s younger than you, and so amazingly smart, that her awe for everything you guys do endears her to you greatly.

“Don’t get killed while I’m gone.” She tells you as you walk her into the hanger, and you’re tempted to laugh.

“You’re going on a mission with Barton, you’re the one that should be worried. I’ll be fine right here.”

“True, but Natasha is about to kick your ass into a coma if you keep pushing her.” She reminds you, and you huff indignantly.

“Why does everyone think she can kick my ass that easily?” You ask loudly, just as Clint comes out of the jet with a pointed look.

“Because she can.” He deadpans. “And she will if you don’t give her some space.”

“I didn’t hear any of that.” You pointendly tell him while Shuri gives you a goodbye hug. “Still trying to process this lack of faith from both of you in my fighting skills.”

“Keep it up.” Clint tells you with another look.

“That’s what she said.” You joke, and you hear Shuri laugh too. Clint chuckles and shakes his head at you, probably thinking that you’re gonna get your ass kicked for real.

“There’s a kid here!” Steve shouts from the jet, and you run back inside before that lecture reaches your ears.

…

When you walk inside the kitchen you find Wanda by the stove, stirring a red sauce and your spirits instantly pique up.

“Can I have some?” You ask, coming up behind her. She yelps in surprise, and you press a kiss on her cheek.

“You scared me.” She smiles, her cheeks tainting red at your proximity, and you lean against the counter as she turns off the stove before checking on the pasta. “Can you set the table? This is ready.”

She’s a pro at this, and you can't resist her cooking.

“It smells really good. My mouth is watering already.” You tell her as you set out two plates, and her cheeks grow redder.

You smile to yourself, and can’t deny that you’re almost inclined to kiss those cheeks again, but you resist the urge. You and Wanda didn’t exactly date, but you did sleep together a few times, and you thought of asking her out properly, but the timing was never right so nothing real ever came up from it.

Then she moved on -with Vision of all people- and you moved on too. Not that anyone was supportive when you started dating Emma Frost, and maybe you see their point now. Emma was a wild ride, to say the least.

Shaking your head to get rid of the memories, you pass Wanda the plates.

“Can you get another one?” Wanda asks you.

“This isn’t dinner for two?” You ask as you go to take down another plate, and she shakes her head.

“Natasha is here too. She went to take a quick shower, so she'll be here any minute.”

You smile to yourself.

...

Natasha is tempted to bolt the moment she sees you’re going to join them for dinner, and you grin when you meet her eyes. It must be infuriating that you can so easily tell what goes through her mind, when she’s spent her entire life training to be unreadable.

You know she hates it, and often wonders how you’re capable of doing it. To be quite honest, you have no idea either. You just have this sixth sense when it comes to her, that lets you read her like an open book.

But, you keep your mouth shut all through dinner. You behave, while Wanda and Natasha chat away. You even get seconds, and fill their glasses with more wine when they get low.

All in all, you don’t annoy Natasha at all while you eat, and you even offer to clean up while they move to the living room with a second bottle of red to continue their conversation.

You put the dishes in the dishwasher, wipe down all the surfaces, and when you’re done you take a beer from the fridge with the intention to leave them to it.

“You can join us.” Natasha calls out, just as you take your first sip.

“You sure?” You ask her, and she rolls her eyes, her go-to reaction whenever you open your mouth.

“As long as you keep the innuendos to yourself, we’re okay.” She sips her wine delicately then, and you -a mere mortal- become entranced with the shape of her lips, and the sensual way in which she drinks.

“Sure.” You clear your throat, and drink almost half of your beer in one go.

You’d be lying if you said that you’ve never thought of Natasha in other, much more naked circumstances, but you’re aware that that is never gonna happen, and you’re okay with it.

“You’re uncharacteristically quiet.” Wanda notices after a while when she comes back with yet another bottle of red, and another beer for you.

“I don’t want to annoy the pretty lady over there.” Natasha groans at your response, which only makes you smile. You almost can’t believe how easy it is for her to become agitated in your presence.

“You gotta try harder than that.” She deadpans, and Wanda takes the seat next to yours instead of sitting in front of you, like she was before she went to the kitchen.

“I’m not annoying, am I?” You ask Wanda, and she gives you this smile that you immediately feel drawn to.

You breathe in deeply as she gives you this look that makes hot electricity run through you, and runs her fingers through your hair. You do miss her, especially when she’s looking at you like this and her fingers are in your hair.

“You’re quite charming.” She says, and you think she might reciprocate if you were to kiss her right now.

“You see?” You look at Natasha, and she rolls her eyes, but not with malice.

“Maybe I just don’t like you.” She says before sipping her newly refilled glass of wine, and you clutch your chest in mock offense.

“You wound me.” You scoff while smiling, but deep down you do feel hurt by her words. Not a lot, but still.

“Natasha likes you.” Wanda tells you then, and you’d think she’s joking if the look on Natasha’s face wasn’t so telling.

“She does, huh?” You ask, mostly to yourself.

“I thought there were things we agreed on not sharing with anyone.” Natasha reminds her, and Wanda shrugs lightly, the glass of wine close to her lips as she smiles.

“What happens in the bedroom stays in the bedroom?” She asks, and with a start you realize that she’s slightly drunk, and oversharing is -unfortunately- her one obvious tell.

That’s how everyone found out that you two were sleeping together a while ago, and right now she’s just revealed that she and Natasha are a little more than just friends.

“I swear to God, if you even think of saying anything right now.” Natasha threatens you, and you laugh, your comeback at the tip of your tongue.

“She likes you too.” Wanda tells Natasha, her finger pointing at you, and you choke on your beer.

“You’re not seriously trying to play matchmaker here.” Natasha’s grin is otherwise telling of how amused she’s finding this entire exchange.

“What? It's not like I even had to look inside her head to know that.” Wanda says, and you finally put your beer down after getting your coughing fit under control. “I’m not wrong, am I?”

She has the audacity to shoot you a smug look, as if she wasn’t throwing you under the bus here.

“Well, no.”

“Great.” Natasha sneers.

“Okay, now hold on.” You speak up as Wanda laughs, and you take the glass of wine from her hands. She’s had enough to drink. “There are different levels of liking someone.”

“Educate us, please.” Wanda is trying to hold back laughter now, and you really - she’s just - she’s such a little shit.

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly kick Nat out of my bed. But, I’m not interested in anything more than that. No offense.” You add quickly.

“None taken, and you’re not taking me to bed. Ever. So don’t worry about it.” Natasha tells you, and how can you not take that one? Sometimes she just makes it easy for you.

“Who said it had to be a bed?” You retort and her face turns red, and you’re not sure if she’s about to kick your ass or just shoot you on the spot.

However, you’re not expecting her to walk over, and kiss you dead on the lips. Which is exactly what she does.

When she pulls back Wanda is laughing, and you’re pretty sure you’re dreaming.

“Cat got your tongue?” Natasha asks when you finally open your eyes, and you swallow with difficulty.

Without waiting a beat you pull her back in, kissing her again, a bit more forcefully than she did first, and she kisses you back in earnest. A part of you isn’t sure of what’s happening, but the other part of you is enjoying this turn of events quite a bit.

“Well, well, well.” You comment when she pulls back, as if she’s finally realized what she was doing. If you’re smiling like a lunatic it’s only because you truly can't help it.

“Is anyone going to kiss me?” Wanda asks, and you break eye contact with Natasha to look at her.

“Come here, you needy monster.” You pull her onto your lap, and she straddles you with ease and familiarity. A pretty smile on her pink lips as she cups your face, and you wrap your arms around her waist.

Kissing Wanda is still heaven. You’re once again submerged in her world, and you still find it incredibly addictive. She bites your bottom lip softly as she rocks her hips forward to meet yours, and you can’t help but let your hands wander.

Grabbing a handful of her ass you pull her closer to you as she deepens your kiss, and you can taste the red wine on her tongue. Her breath is hot as she breathes heavily into your mouth, and your mind becomes fuzzy with want.

“Such a good kisser.” Wanda says against your lips, and you smile sweetly. She’s so adorable, especially from this angle, and the way she scrunches up her nose makes you want to kiss all over her face.

“Better than me?” Natasha asks, and to your surprise you turn your head to find her sitting right next to you.

“I’m not sure.” Wanda says with a false thoughtful look, and hidden smile.

Natasha doesn’t give her a verbal answer, instead you watch the redhead grab Wanda by the neck, and pull her down for an intense kiss that has Wanda moaning in a matter of seconds.

You watch them kiss while holding Wanda’s hand, and your throat dries up. You watch, and realize that this is actually happening. You watch until you can’t anymore.

Grabbing a hold of Wanda’s arm you pull her back to you, and kiss her hungrily. She’s still moaning, her hands now desperately pulling off your shirt, as you do the same with her sweater.

You hear Natasha softly chuckling next to you, but you’re already too wrapped up in everything that Wanda is to care about the world, let alone Natasha’s smug laughter.

“I’ve missed your lips,” Wanda says as she pulls back slightly, a tipsy smile on her extremely kissable lips.

You smile while your hands squeeze her bare waist, and you don't hold back from kissing her again. You’ve missed her lips too, and you hope she can read between the lines.

Her hands in your hair pull back lightly, exposing your neck as she moves to place heady kisses all over it. You’re breathing rapidly now, your hands massaging her breasts, as she licks a path up your throat, still pulling on your hair.

“Kinda feeling left out here.” Natasha’s voice breaks through the fog in your mind, and Wanda sits back on your lap, as she tries to get her breathing under control.

“I’m not sure of what's happening exactly.” Wanda says as you inch closer to her. Your hands are still on her, touching every inch of her exposed skin as you can, while she combs back your hair. You kiss her upper breast, careful not to leave any hickies, despite desperately wanting to.

She gasps, and you look up to kiss her lips, focusing on pinching her nipples now as she rocks her hips forward.

“You want to stop?” You ask after pulling back only the necessary amount to be able to ask her that.

“No.” She shakes her head, her hand gently caressing your cheek as she looks into your eyes. “I think I want you both.”

Instinctively you look towards Natasha, who is still holding her glass of wine, and sipping the red liquid delicately as she observes the two of you.

“Do you - ” Wanda grabs your chin, making you look at her. “Do you want me?” She asks, and you move to pull her ever closer to you. As if that’s possible.

“Always.” You nod quickly, and as you kiss the corner of her lips she turns to look at Natasha with the same question.

“You don’t ever have to worry about that.” You hear Natasha say, but you refuse to stop kissing every single inch of her skin to look.

“I don’t?” Wanda asks breathlessly, your mouth doing wonders on her neck, while your hands reacquainted themselves with the rest of her body.

“You don’t.” Natasha says, and she sounds much closer now. Her voice is more sultry than you've ever heard it before, and you pull back, if only to see the look on her face.

You watch her take Wanda’s outstretched hand as she stands, and pulls Wanda on her feet as well. You swallow with difficulty as you watch her kiss Wanda softly, lips merely ghosting over each other.

However fleeting the kiss though, you see Wanda’s legs quiver and Natasha’s arm wrapping around her waist to keep her upright.

“Bedroom?” She asks her with the confidence of someone who already knows the answer, and Wanda nods, as if in a daze.

You watch them walk away, and you try to calm your racing heart, but it’s difficult when Wanda turns to you from the hallway.

“You coming?” She asks you, and you’re pretty sure that your brain short circuits.

You stand up, picking up your unfinished beer, and down it in one go before you nod, and walk towards her.

“That's what she said.” You stupidly joke, and Natasha rolls her eyes expectedly, but now you see that the edge in her eyes isn’t entirely hate.

“Incorrigible.” Wanda smiles as she grabs your hand, and pulls enough for you to fall into step next to her.

“You’re dangerous.” You murmur close to her ear as you wrap your arms around her from behind, and she throws you a side glance, feigning innocence.

“I have no idea what you mean.” She says, and Natasha chuckles lightly as she unlocks the door to her bedroom.

“Sure you don’t.” She says as she pulls Wanda in for a demanding kiss, and you close the door behind you.

Well, you think to yourself, Natasha might actually end up killing you after all, but at least it’ll be pleasurable for the both of you.

...

#wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff x you #wanda maximoff imagine #wanda maximoff #na #natasha romanoff x you #nat #natasha romanoff imagine #nata #wanda maximoff x natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff

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scar-lie · 9 months

Text

My Wife [Natasha]

I DO COMMISSION JUST DM ME FOR THE INFO

Summary : Y/N the adoptive daughter of Clint Barton got rejected multiple time by the Black Widow, the best friend of his dad

Pairing : Natasha Romanoff x Fem ! Reader

Warning : Cursing, depression

Word count : 5059

No one has permission to repost my work anywhere, if you see it please let me know.

"Here she is....AAAAHHHHH HERE'S MY WIFE." You beam while jumping up and down a little bit once you get up from the couch, pointing to Natasha, who just entered the living room from her room.

A series of laughs, especially from your father, Clint, who is happy to see you with this enthusiasm just by Natasha walking into the same room as you are, already gives you so much joy that it hurts to think to himself

"Arghh........please Y/N, I'm not your wife," Natasha groaned, going to the kitchen that's attached to the living room and getting a glass of white wine.

Pfff, yes, you are, even though I haven't put the ring on those beautiful, slender fingers of yours. You're my wife already........I know it," you said with a giggle, then ran to her.

"Stop, please, Y/N, I'm not your wife nor your girlfriend; for god's sake, I'm way older than you." You just ignored her sentence and hugged her from behind. Since she's taller than you, you cuddled your face on her back.

"Y/N," she sighs, taking your arms around her and pushing you gently.

"Come on, don't make your wife sad and pouty." You pout and give her puppy eyes, but she just rolls her eyes. She's already annoyed and already at her limit, but she just controls herself so she doesn't snap at you.

Natasha is already pissed and stressed by the paperwork. Fury gave it to her yesterday, and she still has one pile of it that needs to be done by tomorrow. This makes her beyond pissed, so your teasing and calling her wife makes her irritated, and the teasing by the team didn't help.

"Come on, Nat, don't make your little missy sad and pouty. Tony teases with a smirk and wiggles his eyebrows when Natasha's eyes and Tony's meet while you look over your shoulder and wink at them. That makes me giggle more.

"Nat, don't make my daughter, or should I say your wife, sad and pouty; you're going to regret it," Clint, your father, teases while drinking beer, and Natasha looks at him in disbelief.

'Seriously, you're pairing your daughter with me, your best friend, who's 15 years older than her?! ' Natasha asked herself and huffed.

Seriously, Clint, that's your daughter for god's sake," Natasha said in disbelief, and the team laughed while you just smiled at her innocently, hands held together in front of you, swayed your top body from right to left, and looked up at her eyes, and she scoffed.

"Argh....I don't have time for your bullshit," she spat, and she just left with her PB&J and her white wine, going back to her room.

"Another time," you whisper to yourself, a little hurt, then go back to joking with the team.

—

You're brushing your hair in front of your mirror on the vanity table while drying it. The only thing that's covering your naked body is your undergarment underneat the towel wrapped around your chest down to your mid-thighs when there's a knock on your door.

"Come in!" You shout with one closed eye, drying your front upper hair. That's when you saw Natasha enter your room in her black sexy dress, revealing her upper boobs and hugging her figures.

This makes you smile widely. Seeing your wife—well, not technically, but for you, she's your wife—wearing this beautiful dress and coming to your room here in the compound makes you flutter, so I put down the hair dryer, then turn around my chair, flashing her my wide smile.

"Arghh......will you cut that fucking grin of yours? You look creepy," she spat, but you ignored it and stood up, still smiling.

"Did you dress for me? Awww, you should inform me that we're going on a date." You fake pout, then run to her and hug her.

"Argh, get off of me, and no, I'm not going out with you; I'm here because I have something to tell you." Then she pushes you away, then crosses her arms across her chest, which makes her boobs get bigger, so I smirk and wiggle my eyebrows.

"Aww are you going to confess to me? That's sweet, but no need; I told you you were my wife, so it's—" she quickly cut me off with a harsh tone.

"No, and I'm here to tell you to stop calling me your wife; I am not, and stop going around and telling people that you're my wife because that's a lie," she said with gritted teeth and piercing angry eyes, looking at your soul.`

"I'm. Not. Your. Wife...............I don't fucking like you, your just a young woman who seeks attention to everybody, you're ruining everything, even my date, you little shit, just accept the fact that I'm not into you, you little attention seeker, she spat, the anger of her now spilling out, and this makes you shrink.

"You're out of my league; for God's sake, I don't need nor want a burden like you in my life, so fucking stop, you people's pleaser, bullshit!" she screams and gets out of your room, slamming the door shut on the way.

You just stand there, looking at the wall in front of you where she was previously standing, and a single tear falls down, followed by another tear. You're breathing heavily, and the towel around you makes you feel like it's trapping you tightly.

So you take it off, throw it away somewhere in your room, and start to claw your throat down your chest, crumble down on the floor, and crawl backwards until your bare back gets contact with your bed.

"Air... air...I-I....ne-need air," you rasp out, breathing heavily. Your neck and chest already have an angry red line, and you keep kicking the floor and squirming in your seat.

"Air......" Tears stream down your face as you try to get as much air as you can, but then there's another knock on your door.

"Y/N/N? Honey, are you alright? I heard some noises." Your Dad knocks, waiting for your response, but that didn't come; instead, a series of noises like someone keeping banging the wall or floor

"Honey?" Clint grows worried, so he quickly opens the door and finds you on the floor, gasping for air.

"Honey, oh god, breathe, baby, breathe," he said, taking you in his arms, holding you tightly, and putting your head on his chest.

"Listen to my heart and follow my breathing, baby," and Clint takes deep breaths while rubbing your back until your breathing is back to normal. Because of what happened, your body gives up, and you fall asleep in your father's embrace.

—

After what happened, you still call Natasha your wife, and this makes Natasha pissed off every time; even seeing your face already pissed her off. Of course, your father, Clint, didn't know what happened that night; all he knew was that you had a panic attack.

You don't want to cause any trouble between your Dad and his best friend, slash your ultimate crush—no, you've fallen for them—so you just make excuses and lie about the panic attack almost every night so you wouldn't cause any chaos on the team.

"Are you ready?" your father asked you when you came into the living room, bags in your hands.

"Yeah, I think all of my things are packed." You give him a sweet smile, so he nods.

"Ok, let's go; we're heading out now, guys. Bye." You two said your goodbyes to the team and waved at them. You turned around to go to the Quinjet but stopped when one voice bid them farewell.

"See you next week." You both looked back and saw Natasha just entering the living room.

"Yeah, see you next week, my wife." You wiggle your eyebrows again, and she instantly rolls her eyes, already pissed.

"Just get out of my hair for god's sake," she mumbled to herself, which no one heard, but you read her lips, so you just smiled at her.

"Don't miss me too much, ok? I'll just be gone for a week. Now be careful, my wife." You bid your good-bye with your father to Natasha and go to the quinjet, going home to your family that you missed.

—

A week and days go by, but Clint still hasn't come back to the compound with you, but the team understands when Clint informs them that he or you two can't come back just yet.

Well, you're not really a part of the Avengers (Your father didn’t let you just yet), but you grew up with them since Clint adopted you when they saw you—a 14-year-old girl trapped in a cell of a Hydra facility—so they took care of you, and Clint and Laura adopted you.

"Clint?" The two married couples look at the doorway when they hear a knock on the door followed by Natasha's voice.

"Nat? What are you doing here?" Clint asked once he opened the door, stepping aside to let Natasha get inside his house.

But Natasha quickly frowned, and then she got greeted with pure silence; not even Lila, Cooper, and Nathaniel greeted her, especially you, who show enthusiasm when you see her, but no, it's a complete silence, like only Clint or Laura are the only people in the house.

"Nat," Laura greeted her with a hug, and she returned it.

"What are you doing here? Not that I don't want you here," Clint said, and they sat on the couch while Laura made coffee.

"I'm worried; it's nearly two weeks and you and Y/N still haven't stepped foot in the compound." Clint looked back over his shoulder at his wife, and they exchanged looks.

"What? What is it?" Natasha quickly asked, knowing that something was definitely wrong.

"Clint." Laura nods at Clint as her husband sighs.

"It's Y/N." Then he stands up.

"Follow me." Natwsha quickly stood up, and she followed her best friend with her heart pumping.

"I don't know how you will react, but hold yourself together," Clint said, and with that, they opened your bedroom door, and there you are, laying in your bed, back facing them.

"What about her?" Natasha asked, seeing that there's nothing wrong but you're just lying down in your bed.

Clint nods at Nat towards you, so she walks around your bed just to find you, looking at the wall blankly, eye bags under your eyes; you're smaller, and now you're skinny as she last saw you, and you didn't hold a single emotion; it's all blank.

She gasps at it and steps her foot back, shocked at what she saw—the once-held beauty of a beautiful smile and the spark in your eyes every time she sees you are long gone.

This isn't what she expects when she steps foot on the farm. The first time she steps foot on the Barton's resident, she feels something isn't right.

Because every time she would pay a visit, even if she was far away, you could sense it and quickly run to her and greet her with a warm hug.

She should know better to know something is definitely wrong from the first time she feels something's not right, which was a week ago, two days after that night.

"Hey...Y/N?" Natasha whispers, slowly walking towards you and crouching down to your level.

Natasha bites her lower lips when she doesn't get any reaction or a single move out of you; you're just there, laying down, looking into nothing.

"Y/N/N... he-hey...please look at me," Natasha whispered, softly touching your arm, but still nothing. She bit her lips harder and looked at Clint, and the couple just shook their heads.

"Clint, tell me, Natasha begged, walking towards them, so Clint pulled her out of the room and closed the door.

"I don't know Nat, I-" Clint sighs, closing his eyes. It breaks him to see his daughter like this.

"It's just one day she's like that," Laura continued, eyes full of worry and sadness.

"When we got home, she was so jolly, and then after two days, she's just like that. I should have known that something was wrong the first time I noticed she was so jolly." Clint holds his wife's hand tightly, and Laura squeezes it back.

"What? What do you mean, Clint?" Natasha grows so anxious that she starts to rub her hand on her jeans.

"She has depression, Nat; she always has." Natasha gasps at hearing the new information and looks back at your closed door.

"It's my fault," she whispered to herself, tears running down her cheeks.

"I want to stay.......here?" She looked at the couple and wiped her tears.

"Until Y/N is better.....please" She clenches her hand with her nail digging into her palm, and the couple sigh, nodding.

—

Since the day Natasha knew about you, she has stayed by your side and refused to leave you. She will tell you how beautiful the weather is or how beautiful the night sky is. She will also tell you stories and read books while she lies beside you, but mostly she's hugging you tightly. When the night comes, once your eyes are closed, her tears run down, wetting your pillow, and she quietly sobs while hugging you tightly, telling you how sorry she was.

"Y/N/N, I have some of your favorite Y/F/S," Natasha beams, entering your room, and she sees you there, sitting up on your bed, which makes her stop.

Y/N-," she quickly runs to you, puts the snacks on your bedside table, and helps you up because she knows you always lose balance.

"Going to the bathroom?" You just shook your head and pointed to the window.

Out," you whisper in horse, and this surprises Natasha, because after weeks of trying to make you say a single word or a letter, you finally spoke, but she quickly gets out of her trace and nods happily.

Ok." With that, she helped you go out and sit in the rocking chair.

"Wh-what do you want to do?" Natasha asked carefully, looking at your side profile.

You didn't answer back; instead, you just looked at the dogs playing in the field—the three dogs you love, and one of them is the one you saved from the explosion.

"Ok, I'll just get us snacks and drinks." With that, Natasha left with a little smile on her face.

You've been improving for over 3 weeks; you've improved a lot more than the first time she saw you; you've been eating at least 2 times a day, even if it's just a few spoonfuls of food; you've been starting to acknowledge your surroundings, answering them with a nod or shook of your head; your pale skin is now gaining color; and now, you want to get up and go out to look outside, which is a kind of big step in your stage.

"Ok, here are the snacks," Natasha said, resting the snacks and drinks on the table. You look at her and nod.

Thanks," she smiled, nodding at you.

"You're welcome" and means that you start to eat the snacks little by little.

"Ca-can..." you whisper and grab a drink. Natasha waits until you take a sip of water.

"Can...you tell me a story?" She smiles and nods, happy that you're finding some comfort in her stories.

"Of course." With that, she starts another story of her life before they meet you and rescue you.

In some point you're loving the stories she's telling you, specially when she tell you the stories of her sister Yelena in the Red Room, you even request it to her to tell you stories with Yelena in Red Room, you don't know but knowing someone suffer the same pain and having a similar backstories/past is bringing you comfort, that your not the only one who go through it all

But for Natasha, she doesn't want to share it; she still struggles to open up about her past. It's hard for her, but seeing you wanting to know it and the feeling of getting it out without judgment feels too good, so she learns to open up to you and let herself be vulnerable.

Slowly, you're getting better, and sometimes you're smiling too. You're joining them at the dining table and listening to their jokes. You even join them on movie nights. Either your siblings will cuddle you or Natasha.

"Dinner's ready!" Laura shouts, smiling that her eldest daughter is starting to go back to them again.

Hey, dinner's ready; do you want to eat now or later?"Natasha asked, looking at your side profile while you looked up at the calm night sky with various stars and your eyes sparkling while watching.

"Let's go." You look at her and nod, so you two go to the dining table and see everybody already sitting there, waiting for you two.

"Sissy, look, it’s your favorite," Lila said with a smile and pointed to the dish, so you smiled at her.

"Yeah, it is, thanks mom," you smile at Laura, and she stops herself to shed a tear and nod at you.

"You're welcome, my sweetheart." With that, you all pray and start eating while joking around.

D-dad," you giggle for the first time, and all of them look at you with shock and a smile on their faces.

"Yo-you..." you smile and point to his chest.

"You have crust on your chest," you say, and he looks down and gasps dramatically.

"Oh, silly me, hahaha.......I'm such a clumsy person," he mocks one of those girls in the movie who acted in such a precious move, and this makes you giggle more.

"My wife's giggling." Natasha can't help but miss how enthusiastic you are around her, especially when you call her your wife. She misses it, and deep down in her, she likes it—no, she loves it; she just doesn't want to admit it.

But this causes your smile to drop, and you look down on your food and take a small bite. With this, they all look at you, and Natasha grows worried, already regretting what she said.

"I'm not your wife," you coldly reply, and Natasha's heart clenches, so she just nods and tries not to show how hurt she is.

Now she knows how it feels to be rejected, and now she knows that this feeling is always lingering on her every day, hour, or minute, and it hurts her like hell.

"Oh...so-sorry-" she said, getting cut off when you stood up to leave.

"Wait, where are you going, honey?" Clint asked, standing up and going around the table.

"Up to my room." You refuse the help of your father and go up to your room by yourself.

This makes Natasha shrink in her seat, look down on her food, and clench her hand that's holding the utensil.

I-I. I'm sorry, Clint.....I-I fucked up again," Natasha whispered, and she quickly stood up to leave before anyone in the family could say a word.

"Nat wait—" Clint got stopped by his wife.

"Let her be for now, Clint; she needs space." Clint looks at his wife, worried. They both know how guilty Natasha is of what she had done before, and Natasha thinks she deserves to be blamed even though the couple didn't blame her.

She just needs something to hold on to to blame, and that's what she chooses; that's her way to cope up and fight for you, and the thought that she fucked up again didn't sit well on her mind; it keeps messing with her head.

Now, you're sitting in your chair, looking out the window, while Natasha takes a ride on her big bike, going as far away from you as she can. She just can't stand to be near you right now, so while she's driving, she keeps wiping her tears until she's out of town and parks at the nearby gas station.

She looks at the empty street and the night sky. She sighs before going inside the store and buying a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and gum.

"Why do you have to be stupid and ruin the best things in your life, Natalia? she hissed to herself once she got out of the store.

going far enough in the gas station with her bike and lighting her cigarette, looking up at the night sky, who shine with the stars

"It is really beautiful," she whispers to herself, only appreciating the night sky now. At first, she doesn't get why people, or specifically you, love looking up at the night sky. Even in the compound, she always finds you at night on the rooftop, laying down with the blanket on the floor and looking up, or at the edge of the building, feet swinging back and forth while looking up.

Now she knows why the silence, the calmness, and the beauty of the night help you and calm you down in times like this and especially make you realize some things you are constantly denying and what you've done and make your mind clear.

After a few sticks of cigarette while looking at the night sky, she starts to feel a raindrop starting to fall down and a thunder sound can be heard in the place, so she quickly steps on the cigarette.

She hops on her bike to go back to Barton's house before the rain gets worse, or at least she wishes, but she's so wrong because she's just driving back for over 5 minutes when the heavy raindrops start to fall down, soaking her wet.

Once she got back, she was drenched from head to toe inside her boots, and it was cold as hell, so she quickly got inside, taking her boots and jacket off.

"Nat?" Natasha stops and looks forward to seeing Clint, Laura, and you sitting on the couch.

"So-sorry about the floor," She whispers, and Laura gives her a towel.

"That's ok, go and dry yourself." She nodded and went upstairs to take a quick warm shower and change into her pajamas. Once she got out of her room, Clint was waiting for her with a crossed arm. At this point, she understands if he wants her to go back to the compound tomorrow morning.

"Clint look," she started, but he cut her off.

"I trust you, Nat; I trust you with Y/N's life; I don't know what I'm going to do; I can't read her; and she refuses every help we offer her; she just wants to be on the couch." Clint looks up at her with pleading eyes.

"Please....try Nat," he said, Nat looking at him hesitantly.

"It's not your fault, Nat; trust me when I say It's not your fault." She shook her head, not believing him.

"You're her light in her dark mind; you're keeping her alive. She saw something in you that saved her. You saved her so many times in any way you could possibly save her." She looked into his eyes with teary eyes.

"I want my Y/N back, the jolly one. But you're the only one who can bring her back. Please, Nat '' Nat plays with her tongue on her right inner cheek while nodding.

"I'll try..." With that, she composes herself and goes down where you are, passing Laura on the way.

"Hey...Y/N/N?" she asked softly, like the first time you look over your shoulder for a second and go back looking at the movie playing in front of you with the lowest volume, so she sat beside you.

"Can you tell me your story again, the one with Yelena?" you asked, still looking at the TV.

"Yeah, ok." Natasha sighs and starts to tell you her story of how the Red Room is programmed and how she needs to fight for her and Yelena.

"What happened to Yelena?" Natasha can't find a word, not a single one; she just shuts her mouth. She doesn't know how to answer your question.

Even though she and her sister are reunited and in a good relationship, she just can't accept the fact that she escaped the Red Room without her, so she just leaves Yelena alone.

"I-she..." she said, looking down on her hand.

"Did you leave with her?" She could feel your gaze on her, so she closed her eyes and shook her head.

"No," Natasha looked up to you, but you shook your head, going back to watch the movie. Natasha thought it was her cue to leave you alone, so she stood up and turned around to leave.

"I am her," you said while still watching, and Natasha looked back at you with a frown.

"What?" She waited for you to talk again, now facing you.

"I am Yelena," you whisper, fidgeting your hand, so Natasha sat beside you again, looking closely at your side profile.

"I was left behind too..............by my older sister," Natasha gasped, biting her lips.

"She left me behind the four walls of the cell in Hydra...............she just used me to get her way out there." You look at Natasha for a second and go back to the movie. Natasha is shocked to learn this story.

No one on the team, even your parents, knows this; all they know is that you're the only one left alive from the Hydra experiments; they didn't know that you have a sister.

"Wh-what happened to her?" Natasha wants to hold you, but she doesn't know if you want that.

"I don't know, but one day when I'm in training, they just throw her dead body in front of me, telling me that I will end up the same as my sister if I try to escape." You stand up and go outside on the porch, so Natasha follows you behind.

"I don't know what I should feel.........I'm-......I'm not allowed to feel anything." You start to go down the stairs of the porch.

"Y/N, wait, no, you're going to get yourself soaked." Natasha tries to get you back to the porch, but you're already down on the grass, where your body is starting to get soaked.

"I didn't know that I was bottling it up..........I don't know what feelings or emotions are." Natasha doesn't have any choice, so she follows you.

"Until I meet you and the team..........you all show me what emotion is." You stop in the middle of the field, 30 feet away from your house, and the fact that you're starting to shiver makes Natasha notice it, so she grows worried.

Y/N, you're going to get sick; please let's get back." She stands beside you. You smile, looking up and letting the raindrop fall on your face.

"And I hate it............" You look at her with teary eyes and a smile.

"At first, because that's where I start to feel the grief, betrayal, guilt, sadness, loneliness, depression, and how much of a monster I am—" your tears start to roll down your eyes, but even if they're running down your checks with the raindrop, Natasha knew you're crying.

"Y/N" Natasha is going to hug you, but she stops when you talk again.

"But I am grateful and happy because... over my entire life, I finally know and feel what happiness is and what love means." That's when Natasha hugs you, rubbing your back.

"But it's too much......I don't want to feel it anymore. It hurts." You sob on her shoulder.

Natasha's own tears roll down her cheeks while she shushing you, holding you, and comforting you while you sob, letting go of every emotion you bottled up.

"Let it all out, baby. Let it all out. I'm here. I'm not going to leave. Just let it all out." Natasha whispers in your ear while you hold on to her shirt tightly like your life depends on it.

"I hate it." Your sob subsides a little, and you tuck your head on her neck, already tired, and keep whispering, 'I hate it.

"I know...shhh, I know. I know, love. I know," she whispers, running her hand over your hair.

"Help me," you whisper, looking up at her eyes, so when she meets your eyes, she smiles and nods, happy that you're opening yourself to her and letting her in.

"I will.....I will be by your side every step of the way. Ok, cause I love you so much. I'm not going to leave you, ok?" your lips starting to quiver while looking up at her eyes.

"You love me?" A spark in your eyes didn't go unnoticed by Natasha, and she smiled, nodding.

"Of course, I'm your wife, and I'm going to put a ring on those gorgeous fingers someday." Natasha kissed your forehead, and she saw Clint running in your direction with two towels and one umbrella.

"Now let's go inside; you're shivering. You're going to get cold." You again buried your face on her chest while shaking your head, making her chuckle.

"But I like the rain," and that's when Clint quickly put the umbrella under your heads.

"Oh my god.......I thought something happened to the both of you!" Clint exclaimed, putting the umbrella he's using between his shoulders and checking while wrapping the towel around the both of you.

Dad," and you hug him, so he hugs you back tightly; it's been a while since he's been able to hug you.

"Let's go home now, sweetheart." With that, Clint wrapped his arm around your shoulder and led you and Natasha back to the house.

—

Since then Natasha always with you, she still read you book, tell you stories and help you every ups and downs on your life, she even take you for a ride every now and then, going into different places where she knows you will love and she even give you flowers even if she just steal some on the garden of your parents or someone else

With the help of your now-lover and your family, the team is constantly visiting you, and you've healed from a big rough patch.

Hey, you leave me for a sec there? "You snapped out of your thoughts, looking at your girlfriend for over 6 months now, who's been lying beside you in your sahred bed, in your shared bedroom; it's actually Natasha's bedroom, but she insists that you should move in, so every time you're in the compound, your room is Natasha's.

"Sorry" you whisper with a shy smile.

"That's ok, my love." She smiled, then started to tickle you.

"It's a tickle monster," she said, and she started to tickle your stomach, which made you squeal and try to get out of her grip.

"St-stop Natty... please," you laugh out loud, pushing her hand away.

"What? I can't hear you!"You scream when her fingers start to tickle your most ticklish spot, which is your armpit.

"NAAATTYYYY!" You scream, and she suddenly stops looking down at you, and you pant heavily.

"You ok?" she asked, taking a deep breath to get some needed air.

"Yeah," you look up and giggle, then her dementor changes; she looks like she is thinking deeply while examining your face structure.

"Nat?" you whisper, putting your hand on her right check. She sighs and leans on your hand.

"You look like an angel, my darling, and I really love you so much," she whispered, kissing your palm and laying down beside you, pulling you in so now your back is facing her, cuddling, her being the big spoon and you're the small spoon.

"And I really love you too, my big bear," You whisper, hugging her arm that's wrapped around your waist.

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