Work Text:
Ever since the initial Snap in 2018, life had been pretty quiet for the Hills. They largely had the Avengers Compound to themselves and welcomed their second daughter, Stevie, in September of that year, by which point Nicole was three and a half. As things quieted down across the world, Natasha and Maria both found themselves with a lot more free time to spend with their family. After five years of a somewhat normal domestic life, Bruce undid the Snap and order was restored, so the Hills made one final move out to Iowa with Steve and Bucky to join the Bartons. Natasha needed it more than anyone, but Maria had grown used to a peaceful life away from the action.
She woke up every morning at around 5:00. Sometimes, she would wake Natasha with a very personal massage, but she was just so cute when she slept that she couldn’t bring herself to wake her, kind of like a soft little bunny. Today, though, she woke up at 3:30. Like she always said, Afghanistan had fucked up her sleep schedule big time. The nightmares weren’t that bad, but the same couldn’t be said for the far more traumatized Natasha, who woke up in a cold sweat at least once or twice every week. She lay there for a few minutes, arms around her pale Russian wife. She had a scar on her stomach where Bucky had shot her back in ‘09, when Maria had first realized that her feelings for Natasha were more than just sexual. She hated it, but it didn’t phase Maria at all; she enjoyed running her fingers over it as she spooned Natasha, and it was the same for the scar on her shoulder from the second time Bucky had shot her. She wasn’t the same hot young thing Maria had fallen in love with almost fourteen years ago, but she only loved her more as the years went on.
After a few sleepless minutes had passed, Maria decided to get some work done before she went on her morning jog. Pecking Natasha on the neck, she climbed over her and walked over to the door. The hallway was dark and a bit eerie, but ghosts were just another factor of the traumatic life that Maria had lived. She peeked in on Stevie, who was sleeping soundly in her bed. Liho sat beside her head and looked up at Maria. She’d always thought of her as Natasha’s cat, but she’d always felt secondary to Natasha. Maria’s pregnancies were more like Natasha’s; she’d poured over the books while Maria worked, woke up at the most ungodly hours to nurse them at her breast, even put her own beloved firearms under so much protection that even Rhodey would struggle to steal them. She wanted to adopt and Maria knew that, but she needed so badly to have the experience of pregnancy, even if it wasn’t hers. Maria could tell that she felt guilty, but she’d helped Steve and Bucky get in contact with the adoption agency that was going to give them a son, and that seemed to do her some good.
Maria sat in her home office, loitering in the dark for a minute before she turned on the computer and was nearly blinded. This was where she talked to Nick and Talos, sometimes Carol. She had to go off-world on occasion, but most of her work trips were to Europe or somewhere else in the States. She hated leaving Natasha, but she was always home in a few days. Her wallpaper was a picture of Nick babbling over Liho when she was just a kitten. It reminded her of that flerken outbreak in the Florida Keys and how Talos nearly passed out whenever someone showed him a conch shell. Currently, they were dealing with a global ring of anti-technology witches, some abnormal geological activity, and the sudden appearance of a living wall in New York City. All she had to do was read some reports and send a few emails. Natasha was very stringent on working late, so Maria chose to work early.
It felt like ages, but 5:00 finally arrived and Maria returned to her room, where she swapped her tee and sweats for a sports bra and leggings. She sat on the bed to pull on her socks, smiling when she felt thin fingers graze her side.
“Don’t forget your contacts.”
“I know.” Maria turned to her wife. “You love watching me change, don’t you?”
“I’m married to you.”
“Touché.”
Natasha sat up and turned Maria’s face towards hers, kissing her deeply. Maria took her in her arms and pulled her in. When they came apart, Natasha buried her face in Maria’s bosom and went limp.
“Nat…”
The redhead groaned.
With a sigh, Maria tucked an arm under Natasha’s legs and picked her up with ease because most of the weight on her bones was muscle or boob and even then it was mostly boob. She gently carried her downstairs to the living room, setting her on the couch.
“Masha, you know I can’t fall asleep without your warm embrace and soft breasts.”
“Speak for yourself, Natasha ‘My Eyes Are Up Here’ Hill.” She kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
“You forgot your contacts, you bitch.”
Maria just rolled her eyes lovingly and walked out the door.
It was a perfect spring morning. The crisp air of the early dawn was better at waking her up than a wildly bright computer screen. The glowing horizon was spreading above the tree line and the air was cool. She always listened to audio reports or podcasts during her runs, but she could tell that it was silent aside from the quiet breeze that swept across the plains. The Moon still hung high in the sky, very nearly full. She was glad that Nicole wasn’t the kind of big sister to tease Stevie about werewolves and vampires. Her morning runs reminded her of the times when she would sit around a campfire with her fellow Marines, taking patrols and making jabs at each other’s moms, though she had a special No Mom Jokes pass that the guys respected. They almost seemed relieved when she told them she was gay and Maria was relieved in turn. They got together for drinks every year or two, but only a few had stuck with it. They were set to meet in St. Louis in just a few weeks.
Danvers Road crossed through the thin woods and was locked down under the guise that it was a protected nature reserve. So far, only three houses had been built there for the Barton, Hill, and Rogers families. Natasha felt very safe with both of her brother figures so close by; Laura and Bucky had both let in on the fact that her emotional stability was almost nonexistent. Steve and Bucky lived closer, so Maria decided to check in on them. She turned onto their driveway when she came to it, pulling out her earbuds and taking in the refreshing quiet. She knocked on the door, waiting for a minute until Steve shouted down at her from the second floor.
“What do you want, Hill?”
“Early bird gets the worm, huh?”
“Oh, fuck off!”
She cackled as she ran back to the road and she was still beaming as the house disappeared behind the trees. Too bad Clint was still fast asleep, but Laura would definitely be down for poking his buttons because marriage was about annoying the shit out of the person you love most.
It was about 5:45 by the time she got home. She’d been up for two hours now and felt like she’d taken a cold shower, though the run had left her a bit sweaty. She stepped up the stairs one long leg at a time and stepped inside, greeted by the smell of eggs and sausage. She pushed off her sneakers and set her phone on the counter. Natasha turned to her with a plate of steaming breakfast.
“Good morning, Maria.”
“Hey, you.” She met her halfway and pressed a soft kiss to her lips.
“I have a surprise.”
“Oh?”
“It’s in my pants.
“Oh…”
Maria pushed past the waistband of Natasha’s sweatpants, her fingers gliding over the soft skin of her pelvis, stopping short of her sex when she felt a piece of plastic. Frowning, she pulled out her contact case. Natasha grinned as she popped in the lenses and Maria didn’t dare admit that things did look a bit clearer.
“I was going to flash you, but now I don’t think you deserve it.”
“Bah, humbug. You’re just a sore loser.”
“Whatever.”
Maria grabbed her breakfast and sat herself down on the couch with her feet propped up on the coffee table to watch a few episodes of Chuck. When she took a whiff of the saucy sausages, she realized just how hungry she was and began chowing on the eggs, which had been artistically decorated with a swirl of ketchup. Soon enough, she heard small feet lightly thump on the stairs as the girls came down from their rooms. After kisses from their mother, they joined the other on the couch.
Stevie plopped down beside Maria. “Hi, Mommy!”
“Hi, sweetie.” She kissed the top of her head and looked over at Nicole. “Hey, Nick.”
“Hey, Mom.” She’d turned nine a few weeks earlier and was a bit reclusive, but she was opening up more. Maria put an arm around her and kissed her on the temple. She perked up whenever Sarah Walker was onscreen.
“Do you think she’s pretty?”
Nicole nodded.
“I prefer redheads myself.”
Maria exchanged an amused smile with her daughter.
After breakfast, Maria helped Natasha in the kitchen while the girls washed up, then took a quick shower and dressed for work while Natasha got out the Iron Widow suit, as its AI was crucial in helping her to provide their daughters with a sufficient education. As she was buttoning up her blouse, her gaze drifted over to the contact lenses on the counter, soaking in their solution. She didn’t like wearing those things in her eyes. Looking up at the mirror, she found it hard to believe the lie she’d painted. She still wore her bun like she had back in the day, but she was older now. She wasn’t a stoic commander in a tight suit anymore. She was a married mother of two who worked from a home office. Walking quickly to the nightstand, she opened the drawer, brushing aside her dog tags and Natasha’s inhaler. Once she felt the soft cover of the case, she pulled it out and flipped it open. She’d promised herself that the glasses would only be a backup, but they were a lot more manageable and comfortable than the contacts. Returning to the bathroom, she put them on and pulled out her bun because it still looked too bossy. The woman she saw was a more accurate reflection of herself.
When she stepped out into the bedroom, she was greeted with the beautiful sight of Natasha’s bare back as she pulled her bra on. Maria hooked it and nibbled on her neck, running a finger over her scar. Natasha turned around and threw her arms over Maria’s shoulders, and her eyes widened.
“I must say I’m pleasantly surprised.”
“Because I’m actually wearing something for my eyes?”
“Sure, but it’s very sexy, too.”
After a quick make-out session, Maria pulled herself away before she started taking off the clothes she’d only just put on. She did have to admit that the glasses worked for her. She grabbed some coffee from the kitchen and sat down at her computer for a day of work. She had a few video meetings to attend and a bit of paperwork to sort through, then could take her laptop to the kitchen and do some work around her family. She watched Nicole think through her math problems while Natasha guided Stevie through a little hologram of the Solar System that was being projected from the suit’s decapitated head. Liho hopped up on the counter and sat beside Maria’s warm laptop, purring. She would gently scratch her head while she read through reports and the like, almost unaware that she was even doing it. When lunch came around, they sat on the porch with sandwiches and the cat bathed in the warm sun. Afterwards, Natasha put Stevie down for a nap and Nicole lay on the couch with a book. Maria had to go up to grab a file from her office and peeked into Stevie’s room, where Natasha lay with their daughter curled up on her chest, smiles on their faces. Maria let them be and returned to the living room, where Nicole lay back with her head on her mother’s stomach as they read their material in silence.
The afternoon was much the same as Natasha taught the girls, Maria did her work, and Liho lounged around. Maria got started on dinner around 6:00 and cooked up some colcannon, a recipe from County Mayo that her Grandma Vernon had taught her to make; thanks to that old woman, she was proud of her Irish heritage rather than disdainful of it. Once Nicole’s taste test came back, she set out dinner and called Natasha and Stevie inside from a game of catch. After dinner, they did a Grand Prix in Mario Kart and got the girls ready for bed. Maria gave Stevie a bath while Natasha brushed Nicole’s hair, then carried her to bed and tucked her in. On her way out, she tossed Liho onto the bed and the cat settled down beside Stevie. She peeked in on Nicole, then went to her own room for the night.
It had been a pretty average day and she saw no better way to end it than a hot shower, so she stepped into the bathroom and stripped. She got in the hot stream and sighed as the water ran down from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, and she wasn’t surprised when she felt a kiss on her chest. She wrapped Natasha in her arms and held her, running her fingers through her wet hair. They washed each other with gentle hands and kissed their bodies with soft lips. When they stepped out of the shower, they pulled on their robes and climbed into bed, fingers interwoven and noses brushing. Maria had done a lot of work that day and she felt like she’d hardly seen her wife. She snuggled up against Natasha to get some rest for the next day and drifted off to sleep in her cozy embrace.