Archive of Our Own

Natasha pushes him with her full weight. She’s never pushed Fury before – she honestly doubts anyone that values their life has pushed him in his entire existence – but he stumbles backwards anyway, and she can’t bring herself to feel remorse for it. 

Instead, she follows after him, getting back into his personal space. “What the fuck is wrong with you!” she practically snarls, halfway to tears. “Did all that time is space fuck with your head? Did it drain you of any sort of respect that the old Nick had?” 

He blinks back at her, looking old and tired and sad above anything else. She wonders what all that time off planet has actually done. Her blood rushes under her skin, her teeth itching to bear. She doesn’t know how she isn’t crying. 

“I’m sorry,” he says plainly, sounding smaller than she’s ever heard him. It suits him horribly. It makes this all feel even worse than it already is. “I…”

Her jaw flexes, grinding her teeth until they ache. “Explain, Nick. Explain to me why Hill bled half to death in your arms when every damn ambulance in Moscow was at the scene.” 

“I can’t.” 

He looks helpless, lost, and Natasha can’t help but think bitterly that this is what happens when he leaves behind the best damned thing that ever happened to him. Maybe she’s jealous. Maybe she’ll never truly be able to forgive him for choosing to leave Maria when Natasha wasn’t given the choice, when it’s taken her so long to get back to her after everything. She watches him stumble over words in his own mouth, fallen so far from the man she knew. 

“Romanoff, I–”

She’s closer again, in his face until he can feel her breath against his cheek. “I don’t want to hear it. Count yourself lucky that she’s alive.”

“Romanoff.”

She doesn’t want to listen to his excuses. She doesn’t want to know the ins and outs of the mistakes he made. She knows he’s only human. She knows she’d have made them in his place. 

His arms are around her then, gentle and far more fatherly than he has any right to be. Her own hands fist in his shirt, the fabric soft and overly casual, and the tears don’t hold themselves back anymore. He doesn’t mention the way they soak into his shoulder. 

“She nearly died, Nick,” she says, thick and desperate. She knows this is the way their lives have been lived from the start. Every time each of them zipped up their uniform was another silent toll against them, each day was another closer to tragedy. It breaks her that she wasn’t there for it. She never is anymore. 

“She didn’t,” he says, calm and authoritative, almost like the old days. “She’s in theatre right now. That woman is one stubborn old mare. She wouldn’t die unless she’d decided it was time to.” 

“I’ve lost her so many times, Nick.” 

His hand is wide and warm over her back, holding her like so few people in her life have. She tries not to find it mortifying just this once. “She’ll make it through. You know she will.” 

She sniffles against his shirt, feeling drained and empty. She doesn’t think she’s stopped vibrating in the hours since she’d heard about it all, and now that she’s not hunting something down, now that she’s not yelling, it feels like her own heart has been shot out along with Maria. She takes a shaking breath, pulling back and ignoring the way it feels to have cried into Nick Fury’s shoulder. 

He looks as tired as herself, and she feels some sympathy after all. The lines are deep around his eyes, his beard long and grey. One day she’ll forgive him for this, separated from her own insecurities. One day she’ll ask him about everything over something so mundane as lunch. One day, Maria will be with them, and she’ll scowl the way she always does when he talks about it. 

Until then, they sit in silence together, in separate seats, one apart but next to each other. Maria will make it out the other end. They’ll get the call, and she’ll be insufferable about her recovery the whole way through. 

Natasha keeps vigil from the moment Maria is allowed visitors. The nurses try to shoo her out and she can’t say it doesn’t feel weird to be in a public hospital for once. She’s gotten used to SHIELD services, and then Tony’s money with the avengers. She’s sure that Tony would move Maria now if she asked him to now, but they’re already in the best hospital in the US, and Natasha had no trouble scaring the nurses into letting her stay. Clint was there when she woke up, folded uncomfortably into the same awful sort of hospital seat and halfway asleep, and even with the way everything went, his presence had meant a lot for her. She hopes Maria’s recovery goes more smoothly than her own. She hopes her own presence can mean something, can help. 

It takes longer than they expect for Maria to wake, and Natasha wonders if she’s making the most of the only time she’s ever taken to rest. 

The first thing Maria thinks, floating to consciousness, is that her stomach hurts like shit. She grimaces, trying to shift herself into something more comfortable before that proves to make everything worse. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” someone says beside her, and her eyebrows furrow further as she tries to place the voice. She turns to look at them, only just remembering that she has eyes that do in fact work, and it takes her another long moment to wonder if she’s awake after all. 

She remembers being shot, and she remembers Nick’s face. She remembers that she was in Moscow, and that Natasha decidedly wasn’t. It’s like her brain has skipped a gear, and she simply scowls further at Natasha as it whirs. 

Natasha’s face turns soft as she looks back, something watery about it. “Hi,” she says softly. 

“Natasha?” 

“Last time I checked.” 

Maria doesn’t think she should have to do this much thinking with this many drugs in her system. She also doesn't think there are enough drugs in her system. “What are you doing here?” 

“Someone had to make sure you didn’t crawl out of the hospital to get back to work.” 

Maria smiles before she can really think better of it, letting her head drop back to her pillow. She’s so tired. She must be imagining this. “I don’t think I’ve had a real job in a year.” 

She can just about see the way Natasha raises a teasing eyebrow. “When has that ever stopped you?” 

“Well, if it makes you feel better, I don’t think I could get up if I wanted to.” 

“Not really,” Natasha says truthfully, and god, how she’s missed her. “How is it?” 

“Feels like a hole in my stomach,” she replies, entirely deadpan, and Natasha laughs in that wonderful way she does. 

“I’ll get them to give you more morphine.” 

“How did you know?” Maria asks, and she doesn’t have to specify what she means. 

“I have my ways.” Natasha’s eyes are so soft, so achingly full of emotion. Maria closes her own against the sight. “I couldn’t leave you again.” A laugh, almost wet. “I thought I might’ve lost you already, truthfully.” 

“Not yet,” Maria says, almost cocky. She tries not to think about the meaning of it all, of how little time they’ve had between them and how much it means to her anyway. “Thank you,” she says softly. 

“Of course,” Natasha says, and it means so much more than two little words. 

Maria lifts a hand, reaching out just slightly, and Natasha takes it in her own without a word between them. She holds on tightly, any further thoughts spoken silently through them, and Maria’s eyes slide closed again.

She feels like she’s about to pass out, the room spinning around her, but she doesn’t want to leave Natasha again so soon. She doesn’t want her to be gone when she opens her eyes again. She holds on tighter, her eyes firmly shut. 

“We match now,” she says on some odd whim, her inhibitions subdued along with the pain.

Natasha laughs softly. “Yours is higher up.” 

Maria’s eyebrows furrow playfully. “Don’t be pedantic.” 

“We match,” Natasha concedes. “I would’ve taken a friendship bracelet, y’know. Maybe a nice necklace.”

“Ha ha.” But then Maria laughs properly, a soft sound through her nose that still leaves her grimacing and choking. She wheezes just slightly, her face pinched through a smile. “I thought maybe it’d be a fun fashion statement.” 

“You’re taking this much better than I did,” Natasha says as if the memory doesn’t tug painfully at both of their chests.

And of course Maria is. It’s what she was born and bred into, all she was ever taught was to be calm, to listen to orders and be sensible. It’s not her choice to be indifferent about her own suffering, as much as she’ll try to hide it behind phrases such as panicking never helps. And as nice as it is for Natasha so see her smiling and joking, it aches underneath. 

Maria hums, long and sleepy. “You scared me half to death that day,” she says, sounding a lot like she’s reliving it now. “You tore out your drainage tube and were almost out of the doors when you shouldn’t even have been able to sit up.” 

Natasha lets herself laugh despite the bitter taste of the memory. “I passed out before I could reach the end of the corridor.” 

“Not without popping your stitches and requiring restraints for the next time you woke up.” Maria almost smiles, something fond in the memories of how Natasha has always been so much more than her authority.

“That wasn’t any fun either.” 

Maria’s face is grave again then, and a little like she’s actively fighting the pull of sleep. “I can’t imagine it was. But you made it through.” 

Natasha strokes a thumb over the back of Maria’s hand, and she thinks the move is probably a touch over familiar, but she can’t bring herself to care. “Only because you let Clint stay with me against protocol.” Hospitals have never been a pleasant experience. Hospitals with restraints even less. It had very nearly sent her off the rails, if she’s being perfectly honest, and she can’t deny that Maria’s compassion, even if she’d so rarely seen her face at the time, wasn’t the last thread holding her together. 

“He would’ve put up just as much of a fight,” Maria replies, her worlds tailing off.

Natasha doesn’t bother to respond, not wanting to keep Maria up with such sad memories. She’s glad she’s taking the time to rest. She’s glad that she isn’t fighting it like herself. She only wishes she’d chosen better methods for a holiday. 

She wonders, once Maria has fallen soundly asleep, accompanied only by the slow beeps of her monitors, who she was expecting to be sitting in her place. She’d seemed so surprised, and it hurts to think that she was most likely expecting no one. Not even her. 

Naturally, Maria recovers as quickly and subbornly as she does everything else in her life. Sadly, the nurses still insist on seeing her recover fully before they let her leave. Being able to stand up for more than thirty seconds doesn’t seem to be their idea of ‘fully healed’ as much as it seems to be Maria’s. 

“Come on,” Natasha says, almost smiling. “You’ve done it every other day of your life.” 

Maria glances between her and the food in front of her. She feels horribly sick, if she’s honest. Unsurprisingly, getting shot in the stomach does wonders for your digestive system, even if it technically avoids enough of everything to leave minimal long term damage. 

“It’s one meal,” she tries to bargain.

“And if you skip one meal then you’ll try to skip the next. Just eat one part of it.” She almost smiles, something fond in the corners of her face. “You keep forgetting that I’ve already done this. I know how horrible the eating is.” 

Maria picks the thing she thinks will take the longest to chew and tries not to feel like throwing up the whole time until she swallows it. Natasha seems pleased with her, at the very least, and the process is horrible the entire way until the plate is clear.

The nurses are overtly praiseful when they come to collect it, and Maria appreciates that less. They look at Natasha in an interesting way and offer her drinks too. She hasn’t left since Maria woke up for the first time, always curled up in that same chair every time Maria’s consciousness is returned to her. She’s less foggy these days, less tired from the healing and the drugs, and she thinks she could cry for each moment that Natasha continues to be there. She thinks she’d go insane without her these days. 

She doesn’t think they’ve had so much time together in their lives. Even years ago at SHIELD, neither of them had the luxury of spare time for conversations and affections. They’ve never had the time for things, and Maria wonders if she has the words to express it all now that they do. It’s always been unspoken, something that they show with actions in the limited snippets they get. It’s something that has never had the privilege of being real, never something they can talk about.

Now, it’s all Maria wants to say. All she can do is talk and all they have is time. She wonders how Natasha is affording this, how she hasn’t been called back into action like always. She doesn’t know much about what Natasha has been doing since everything went down so long ago. She only knows that it hasn’t left time for her between it all, their connections continued in the briefest eclipses. 

“I’m going insane,” she says instead of everything else that is far too heavy to bear.

“How so,” Natasha says amusedly, as patient as Maria has ever seen her. She wonders how she hasn’t started chewing at the walls with all of this sitting still. 

Neither of them have ever been good at doing nothing. “I miss the gym.” 

“Anyone would think you’re addicted to it. Is physio not enough for you?” She grins.

Maria ignores the hypocrisy of the statement. “It was better than the alternatives. And physio hardly counts as exercise.”

Natasha hums. “You’re always shaking by the end of it.” 

“And it’s awful. Exercise is meant to be fun.” It drags a laugh from Natasha that she knows well, and she understands that her old agents probably wouldn’t agree with the statement. 

“They said you can be home by the end of the week if you keep your eating up.” 

“They did.” And then she laughs herself, something almost bitter about it. “I don’t know where home is anymore. You don’t exactly get to settle down in this life.” 

Fury had come in once, early on after she’d woken up, and Maria had sent him away in a move that had confused Natasha at the time. She’d said she didn’t want to see him in the state she was in, and Natasha had tried not to cry at the idea that Maria trusted her to be there. Truthfully, she was glad that she didn’t have to sit in the room with him, or worse yet leave Maria.

“Don’t you have a plan?” she asks. 

“I’ll talk to Fury tomorrow,” she says, more calmly than Natasha thinks someone who is potentially talking about being homeless should really be. Maria watches her for a long moment, thinking silently like she always does. “Are you two talking again?” 

“Yes.” She almost smiles. “I was angry before. It wasn’t his fault. I’m surprised he hasn’t come back. You’ve been good lately.” 

“I told him not to,” Maria says simply. “I know he’d try and say sorry in his own weird way, and I don’t want to deal with seeing him like that. He can wait until I’m well enough to fight back about his own guilt.” 

Natasha laughs softly at that. “You would’ve fought him about it the moment you woke up.” 

“That’s probably true,” Maria says with a tip of her head. “I’ve never been a social creature though.” 

“That’s an understatement.” 

Neither of them mention how Maria has never rejected Natasha’s company. Neither of them mention the way Maria holds her hand here like she’s scared she’ll leave. Their hands find each other again then, some silent promise. Natasha’s mind is made up for her in that odd moment, even as she thinks it might be one of the most dangerous things she’s ever said. 

“You could stay with me.” 

Maria blinks at her before her eyebrows crease. “Where are you staying? Is Pepper still looking after you all.” 

“In her own ways.” She shakes her head lightly, smiling. “We all had our own shit to deal with after all of that. She helped me get a place, and in return I work for her on and off when I can. She pays well for nothing.” 

Maria grins, lopsided and dopey. “The Black Widow retired?” 

“I like to think of it as a tactical retreat.” She lets herself smile back briefly, before her face falls serious again. “There’s always something to do, something more important. I haven’t had a day off for months; I don’t even think I can call it a retreat. But there’s newbies on the scene now. The world doesn’t need us as much anymore. I have a house, and I get to spend a few nights a month in it.”

“I’m glad,” she says, almost painfully soft.

“So?” Natasha urges, holding her hand a little tighter. “You don’t have to say yes, but if you need a roof.” 

“I’d be stupid to say no,” Maria replies, smiling a touch too tellingly. “Would that make you or me the housewife?” 

Natasha laughs over the butterflies that swarm in her stomach, trying desperately to take it as the joke that it is. “I don’t think I’d make a very good one.” 

“Well, we’ll find out, won’t we?” She squeezes her hand back, and Natasha can only smile. 

Clint visits a couple times, though he never stays long. He mostly comes to bring them snacks and tell Natasha that she’s allowed to leave Maria for the twenty minutes it would take to walk to the corner store. 

Maria is glad to see him each time, despite her distaste for people seeing her like this. Natasha finds herself warmed each time, hiding her grin into a coffee cup as Maria jibes him for one thing or another. She might not be their boss anymore, but she gives a good attempt at it. 

“I’ll see ya around,” Clint says with a wave of his hand. “Heal up good, yeah?” 

“You know I will,” Maria says, grinning ever so slightly. “I’ve got the best nurse in the world.”  

Clint barks out a laugh, lingering in the doorway, and Natasha meets the look he shoots her with a dangerous sort of glint. “Yeah,” he says. “She’s sure patched me up her fair share. Just don’t let her bully you about it.” 

Maria grins a little wider. “I wouldn’t dream of it.” Clint is gone around the corner less than a moment later, and Maria watches Natasha place her cup down on the table between them. “Hear that?” 

Natasha rolls her eyes, just barely, a smile tugging at her lips. “Getting you to eat breakfast isn’t bullying.” 

“Is that allowed?” Natasha asks, as if she’s ever truly cared whether permission has been given for anything in her life. 

“Why wouldn’t it be?” 

“I don’t know. Nurses are weird about things.” 

Maria laughs softly, just through her nose, but her face lights up with it in a way that still settles warm in Natasha’s stomach. So much of Maria’s life is spent scowling. Even when she sleeps, the crease between her eyebrows rarely goes away entirely. Even with a hole in her stomach, Natasha thinks Maria has smiled more through this whole ordeal than she has anywhere else. 

“Well, I think we can get some slack,” Maria assures, still smiling slightly. She reaches out for Natasha’s hand once again. Their hands always seem to be touching lately. “I only have so much patience for letting someone I don’t know manhandle me.” 

Natasha smiles herself. “They don’t manhandle you.” 

“I don’t like it either way.” 

“But you’ll let me manhandle you?” 

“If it means I get to shower properly, then yes.” Her lips quirk ever so slightly. “And you’ve manhandled me countless times.” 

Natasha shakes her head despite the way she grins. “You’re so romantic.” 

“I try.” 

“Can you stand for that long?” Natasha says, getting back to the point. 

“They have a chair in there.” 

“Like an old woman?” 

“Not just old people use them. You used one.” 

“Let me joke.” 

Maria smiles relentingly. “I just need you to do my back. I can’t stretch yet.” 

Natasha nods, a touch serious for the task at hand. “I can do that.” 

It’s not like showering together is something they haven’t done together. When your time is limited, and you come back smeared with gunpowder and blood, showering together becomes more of a greeting than anything else.

It doesn’t stop it from feeling much more intimate as Natasha helps Maria out of her clothes, saving her from having to bend and stretch too much. The shower runs behind her, warming up and spreading steam through the air. 

“Your clothes are going to get wet,” Maria says, in a tone that means she’s aiming for something else. Natasha only raises an eyebrow back at her, still fully clothed. “What? You’re telling me you’ve been sneaking off to shower without me noticing?” 

“No.” 

“You never seemed to have any qualms showering together before. Do I need to tell you that you smell?”  

Natasha’s mouth betrays her, one corner pulling into a smirk. “No.” 

She removes her own clothes and tries to ignore the way Maria watches so openly. Something lately, somewhere in the back of her head, seems to seek these little confirmations that Maria wants her around, that this isn’t all in her head. They’ve showered together countless times, but each has been a pretence to something else. This feels like more. This feels… domestic.  

Maria has never been in the habit of letting herself relax much, and showers have always been a rare sort of respite for her, often run much longer than they should be, until the water runs cold and she comes out near shivering. It’s hard not to be able to do everything herself these days, forced to accept outside help for the simplest tasks. She’s taking her independence back with both hands as it comes, at every opportunity, with impressive enthusiasm.

But here, now, she lets herself close her eyes as Natasha massages shampoo into her scalp. Her nails are short at the moment, scratching lightly here and there, and she’s so careful not to get soap or water in Maria’s eyes. It’s wonderful in a heartbreaking way, relaxing in a way that she can’t really breathe around. 

She hums, not really meaning to, the pleasantries of the situation escaping her before she can wrangle them, and Natasha laughs under her breath at her. 

“What?” she says without turning around, smiling already.

“Nothing,” Natasha replies, though there’s a smile in her voice too. “You should’ve told me you liked this. I would’ve done it before.” 

Maria hums again, only half for agreement. “We never really had the time.” 

They could’ve, maybe. If either of them had had the courage to ask for something slower. If either of them had had the faith that it wouldn’t be the last time they got to see each other, if they weren’t so desperate to feel the other alive under their palms and lips. 

Natasha laughs softly once again, a touch sad. “I guess we didn’t.” But we do now.  

Maria doesn’t question her further, her eyes still closed as she relaxes further into the feeling. The water is warm where it hits her thighs. 

Natasha moves her head with her hands, not bothering with words between them, and somehow that makes this feel more familiar. They’ve known each other so well, for so long, that words feel like some odd second language. It’s a useful skill to have in the field, even if it’s been an awfully long time since either of them have been on a mission together in person. It makes it feel a little more like always, even as Natasha rinses the soap gently out of Maria’s hair, more tender than they’ve ever been with each other as she runs conditioner through the ends. Natasha’s own hair is washed much more efficiently, no trace of the indulgence put into Maria’s. 

She helps Maria wash her back properly too, infinitely careful around the exit wound just to the side of her spine. The surgeons have done an excellent job of piecing her back together, the scar miraculously neat for the sort of damage that Natasha can only imagine it caused. It still isn’t small, but it’s healing nicely, and Natasha can’t thank the fates enough that it managed to miss anything so vital. 

She watches the way Maria still twitches when she gets too close, the muscles of her back rippling in that odd way. She tries to soothe them with firm strokes, some sort of halfhearted massage to work the tension out of her. Maria sits brilliantly, not a single complaint past her lips, and Natasha tells her she’s done with a soft pat to her hip.

Unsurprisingly, Maria does as much of the work as possible on her own, and Natasha scrubs herself down in a terrible attempt to cover the way she watches her. Her movements are still stiff in places, still a little slow when she has to bend and stretch, and Natasha remembers trying to do all of this herself. She wishes she’d had the courage to ask Clint to help her, instead of the teeth and anger she’d shown him instead. She wishes she’d been soft enough to need someone, instead of the agony that came with stubbornness and solitude. 

She’s glad that she can be here for Maria. She’s glad that Maria is letting her in, even as she watches her frown at her own stomach, prodding at the healing skin. “Don’t poke it.”

Maria glances out of the corner of her eye before she leaves it alone, smiling slightly, and Natasha doesn’t need words before she’s turning so that she can wash the conditioner out of her hair. It’s gotten longer since the last time she saw her. It’s gotten lighter, too. She doesn’t mention the threads of grey; they’ve been there since the start, if less obvious. 

Fury visits multiple times over the next couple weeks and he doesn’t look any less tired than before. 

“You look like the one that should be in the hospital,” Maria comments one day as Fury takes the seat next to Natasha.

“Are you calling me old?” 

“Are you admitting it?” 

They talk the way they always have, and Natasha doesn’t hold a grudge, just like she’d promised Maria the first time they’d spoken about it. He seems happy that she’ll have Natasha’s company, and Maria tells him to stop looking at her like that. 

He never stops looking guilty, and Natasha understands the exhaustion behind his eyes. They both nearly lost someone more important than they can ever admit in words, and she wonders if his own regrets run as deep as her own. There has only ever been a lack of time between all of them, and they are only ever reminded of it harshly. 

Still, it’s nice to see him around again, and Natasha suspects that seeing Maria alive and well with his own eyes is as important for him as it was for her. It’s hard to be so worried when Maria is the same as always. She complains to Fury too, about the food and the exercise, and Natasha can only shake her head, laughing as Fury responds in the exact same manner as Natasha before him. 

“You’re the one that reopened it by being stubborn,” Fury tells her, in that rare jovial sort of tone that Natasha only ever really hears with Maria in the room. 

Maria sighs, sinking back into her propped pillows despite the smile at her lips. “They said I was healing well.” 

“Well,” Fury repeats. “Not superhuman.” 

“I’ve never been good at resting,” she argues. 

Fury chuckles, and Maria’s face softens for it. “No. You’re not wrong there.” 

“What happened to your superhuman ability to follow rules?” Natasha asks, only smirking slightly. 

“Maybe I’m losing my touch,” Maria jokes, and all of them ignore the truth that rings through it. 

They’re all getting older, they’ve all got to stop at some point. You don’t get to choose in this life. The job ends when you do. But Natasha has a house now, and she could take up more hours with Pepper. Pepper would pay her no matter what hours she worked, but she knows she’d get restless without something to do.

Clint retired, didn’t he? He’s shown her that it’s possible – to have a family and a quiet life after it all. She wonders what Maria will do once she’s healed, and it aches in her chest to hope that she might stay. She wishes she had the courage to ask her, but she could never ask her to leave this life behind. It’s all they’ve ever known. Natasha doesn’t know if she can truly leave it herself. 

But Fury is here, and she’s not going to ask in front of him anyway, so she sits silently and listens to them talk again. Maria’s hand finds hers again, and Fury’s eye flickers to her own in some knowing gesture. She doesn’t let go of Maria, and he isn’t so bold as to mention it in words. 

“Are you sure?” Maria asks, sitting up on the edge of her hospital bed. 

She looks normal, as if this was only ever just a visit and not a makeshift home for the both of them these past weeks. Natasha almost finds it funny that she asks. 

She picks up Maria’s only bag for her. “I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t.” 

Something about her looks childish, her shoulders hunched as she looks up at her. It’s an odd look on someone like Maria, but Natasha can’t say she doesn’t like it just as much as everything else about her. “You can take it back, though. I don’t want to intrude just because I got myself shot.” 

“Maria,” she says, making sure to hold her eye, making sure that Maria can’t misinterpret this one thing. It rattles her heart in her throat, but if she doesn’t say it now she never will. “I’ve spent barely ten minutes away from you since you woke up. If I was worried about you intruding on my alone time then I would’ve left a long time ago.” 

“Yes, but–” 

“No buts.”

“You don’t want a break?” 

“Do you?” She raises an eyebrow at her, almost stern, and she really doesn’t want to hear her answer. “You need someone to look after you still.” Maria blinks at her for a long moment and Natasha worries that she’s pushed this too far somehow. “Sorry– I didn’t mean to be pushy. I tried to look after myself and it never went well. But I had Clint too.” 

“Yeah.” Maria swallows, and she doesn’t look offended. She seems surprised more than anything. “Thank you. Really. I appreciate it.” 

Natasha only nods, and Maria pushes herself to her feet with more ease than she’s felt so far. She knows Natasha values her privacy, and she knows that Natasha doesn’t like hospitals. And yet, Natasha has spent every moment of every day here with her. It sits warm in her chest for reasons she doesn’t care to inspect right now. They’ve never spoken about it, and Maria doesn’t feel like starting now. She doesn’t want to ruin the self contained sort of hope that she’s managed to find. 

Natasha’s house is nice. It’s modest, for Pepper’s practically unlimited budget. Everything about it is so wonderfully Natasha; close enough to the city to walk, and yet far enough away that the nights are dead silent, just like Clint’s farm. There’s two bedrooms, for the visitors that Natasha would deny she hosts, and the place is decorated sparsely but warmly – a blanket thrown over the back of the sofa, more lamps than really necessary, as if to make up for the lack of photos and lived-in clutter. 

The two of them pause at the bottom of the stairs and Maria stares up them with as close to concern as Natasha as ever really seen over a simple obstacle. 

“My room is downstairs,” Natasha says, if only to put her out of her own misery. “You can have that one and I’ll move upstairs.” 

“I can’t do that to you,” Maria insists. “They said I should try to use stairs occasionally to build that movement back up.” 

“My shower is still upstairs, that’s enough practice every day for now. I really don’t mind.” 

Maria continues to scrutinise her for a long moment further before her face softens again. It does that a lot lately, and it’s such a far cry from the hard lines of her face everywhere else that Natasha finds herself short of breath every time. Natasha tries not to think too hard about how quickly Maria has been giving in lately too. 

“Okay,” Maria says at last. “If you’re really sure.” 

“I always am,” Natasha replies, before she can think what she means by the statement. 

But Maria smiles just that bit wider in response, turning on her heel before Natasha can really get a good look, and Natasha lets herself be led through the ground floor of her own home and Maria looks around. 

“Why is your bedroom down here?” Maria asks as they unpack the few clothes she’s actually brought with her. Natasha thinks they’ll have to get her some more. She wants Maria to have the chance to settle down too, in as many little ways as having her own normal sized closet. 

“I wasn’t using it upstairs,” she replies as if she isn’t planning the logistics of Maria moving in with her more permanently before she’s even asked. She shrugs, as nonchalant as possible. “I crashed out on the couch more often than I even made dinner, and I thought why not just move my bed down here instead.” 

Maria only smiles in that secret way she does, finding something about this charming, and Natasha counts herself lucky to be able to know the meaning of it. Even if the meaning makes her heart flutter in her chest. 

They sort out Maria’s clothes, tucking them into draws next to Natasha’s own, and Maria likes the look of them together so keenly. She wishes, for the first time in her life if she really thinks about it, that she could settle down here. She’s never let herself think about it. It’s never been an option. But now she thinks that spending this time with Natasha, in her house, with their clothes together in the dresser, that this is all going to become awfully hard to leave. 

Maybe she doesn’t have to. Maybe there’s people that can look after the world for her too. 

By the end of it, they’re both sitting on the edge of Natasha’s-turned-Maria’s bed, and it all feels so overtly domestic that neither of them really want to ruin it by speaking. Maria lowers herself gently, edging around the tug in her abdomen until she can prop her arms behind her head and gaze lovingly at Natasha. 

Natasha turns, following her movement, only for a grin to spread itself across her face at the sight of her. Maria grins back, taking in the warm lighting of two lamps instead of the overhead and the way it plays over Natasha’s face, through her hair. Her eyes are stunningly green, and her cheeks are still sprinkled with freckles, little lines around them that seem to spread every time Maria gets the precious chance to take her in again. 

And then Natasha is moving, leaning forwards until she’s over Maria for the split second it takes Maria to try and push herself up to meet her. A hand meets her chest, pushing her back down against the mattress, and she’s glad for it really, her abs aching from the short movement. Natasha only presses her further down with her weight, and then she’s smiling and she’s kissing her, and it’s such a relief that Maria could cry.

This part is familiar. This part, Maria knows what to do with. It’s like the old days, like every other split moment they’ve had together, and Maria lets her hands splay over the small of Natasha’s back, soaking up her warmth and holding her closer. Natasha sighs happily against her cheek, melting further over the top of her, and Maria thinks she could do this for hours. She thinks she could do this for the rest of their lives. 

They end up lying together for much longer than they’ve ever had the pleasure of doing before. They’ve always been so limited. They’ve had so few entire nights together that Maria could count them on her hands. It’s nice to know that they’re not waiting on a call to take one of them away for once, the house like some sort of secret space where nothing else exists. 

Natasha has moved to press herself into Maria’s side, pulling herself reluctantly away for the sake of Maria’s still healing wounds. Her cheek is tucked against Maria’s chest, and she plays with one of her hands like she’s discovering it for the first time in her life, pleased and sated. Maria feels like she could fall asleep, and she does. She’s never had so much sleep in her life. 

Maria wakes to kisses along her shoulder, hair trailing soft and ticklish alongside them as Natasha makes her way over to her throat and along her jaw. She ends her path with a kiss to her lips and Maria hums happily into it, hands coming to hold her again. 

“How long was I out?” 

“Just a few hours,” Natasha replies, obviously sleepy herself. Her eyes are droopy, her hair mussed, and Maria thinks it might be the nicest sight she’s ever had the pleasure of witnessing. “Should I make dinner?” 

Maria grins. “I get meals cooked for me?” 

“Only until you can cook them yourself.” Natasha squints playfully, propping herself up on her elbows to look at Maria properly. 

Maria frowns in consideration, nodding along. “You did say you’d make a terrible housewife.” Natasha smacks her softly wherever she can reach and Maria can’t help the way a grin crawls back onto her face. She thinks she smiles much more these days. She thinks Natasha does too. “Is there anything I can help with? As long as your cooking doesn’t involve running.” 

Natasha seems reluctant to let her help, no doubt worrying for the structural integrity of her abdominal wall. “You just need to look pretty.” 

Maria almost pouts. “I want to help. I don’t want to feel like some invalid, and cooking isn’t going to hurt.” Natasha hums, just longer than Maria thinks is frankly necessary. “Do I need to bring up your own history again?” 

“Fine,” Natasha says, shaking her head despite the smile that escapes her control. “You can help chop.” 

Maria eats better than she has the entire time she spent in hospital, and Natasha watches her with nothing short of pride and joy. 

“Stop staring,” Maria says, with no note of real annoyance. Her forkful of food doesn’t even pause in its path from her bowl. “Your food will go cold.” 

“Maybe I like cold food.” 

Maria stares back at her, chewing. “You really don’t.” 

Natasha doesn’t bother with a response, returning to her own meal with a smile. Maria takes her turn to watch her eat for a short moment and she pretends that this doesn’t feel so homely as it is. All of her meals, since she was a teenager, have been eaten in canteens or totally alone. Any small company for meals has been entirely professional and largely uncomfortable. Even in the last few months, she’d taken herself away from people to eat, almost unaware of the behaviour. 

She wonders how often Natasha has eaten with people. Whether she ever misses eating in groups like her childhood, whether the avengers ever ate together in the tower. She doesn’t like thinking about Natasha’s childhood much, and she focuses instead on the small atmosphere of this house, how it feels like there is no one else in the world. 

Natasha is a good cook, and Maria can’t say she’d wouldn’t be loath to leave this behind. She wonders how long Natasha’s invitation extends. She wonders if she has the courage to ask.

It might be nice to stay somewhere for once. It might be nice to have time. To not wonder where the next threat is coming from. 

Instead, she finishes her food, and she returns the smile that Natasha can’t seem to hide at the sight of her empty bowl. She insists on letting her help with the dishes, even if Natasha has to fetch her a chair after ten minutes. Healing can be a slow progress, she insists despite Maria’s annoyance, and Maria tries not to scowl as she continues to dry utensils from her seat. 

“Too much rest doesn’t help,” Natasha continues to explain. “We slept the afternoon away.” 

“And it was worth it,” Maria insists back.

The lounge is still upstairs, and Maria still doesn’t fancy trying to face them, and so they end up in the bedroom again. Natasha turns more lamps on to make up for the darkness outside, and Maria tries not to mention that the overhead would be easier, smiling from the doorway instead. 

“How’s it feeling?” Natasha asks, tucking her legs underneath her by the pillows.

Maria’s head tilts slightly in consideration, and Natasha will never not find it endearing. “It’s a little tender. But it’s nice to get rid of the dressings.” 

Natasha hums in agreement. “You probably need to moisturise it again,” she says, already gathering the supplies from the nightstand. “You’re usually very good at routines. Why do you always wait until I remind you?”

Maria is already removing her shirt when she turns back around, settling herself onto the mattress, and Natasha tries not to laugh at how easily she’s come to expect help these days. Her movements are getting smoother, easier, but she can still see the annoyance that lingers in her face when she can’t move the way she used to. She’s glad she’s letting herself be vulnerable in some parts of her recovery.

She watches her lay down properly, her chin propped on her forearms, and Natasha takes her seat next to her. Maria’s scar is healing nicely despite her penchant for aggravating it, and Natasha tries to think of the last time she saw how her back looked. 

“Do you remember what my scar looks like?” she asks as she scoops a small amount of cream out of the tub. 

“How so?”

“I don’t look at my back. What did it look like? This is gonna be cold.” 

Maria hums as she spreads the cream around her scar, holding still. “Like the entry wound, but bigger. You didn’t heal it very well.” 

“Yeah yeah,” she says through a laugh. Maria’s scar is shiny like her own, the skin tighter where it’s struggled to heal. It really does look like her own, though she knows the bullets were different and that Maria has been much better about following instructions. A bullet wound is still a bullet wound, and her hands still want to shake as she rubs the moisturiser in gentle circles. “I guess we really do match.” 

Maria only hums again, her eyes closed as the cream soothes the itch that never seems to leave at the moment, and when Natasha is done, she doesn’t bother to sit up. 

“Come on,” Natasha says, nudging her gently. “You’ve got the other side to do.” 

Maria still doesn’t open her eyes. “I don’t want to sit up.” 

“Injury has made you soft,” Natasha jokes with a sigh, and Maria smiles against her forearms. 

She moves to turn over instead, ignoring the stretch in her stomach when she twists. Natasha is smiling ever so slightly when she opens her eyes, watching her with the moisturiser still open. She seems happier these days, calmer. The curtains are open despite the time, and the doors are left wide through the house. They’ll never stop scanning a room as they walk into it, but Natasha doesn’t look over her shoulder every thirty seconds, she doesn’t shy from windows out of habit. Maria thinks it’s nice that she’s lived to see her be safe. She’s glad she’s gotten to see her get somewhere she doesn’t feel threatened.  

It’d be a nice life, wouldn’t it? To slow down, to be able to relax? She doesn’t think she’s flinched all day, and the idea of leaving sounds less bearable by the hour. 

“Will you do it?” she asks on a whim. 

“I thought you liked to do it yourself?” The pot is still in her hand. 

“Maybe I’m tired.” 

Natasha’s lips tug slightly. “Too tired to moisturise?” 

“Maybe I just like it when you do it. Do I need to beg?” 

A laugh escapes her and Maria feels it over her stomach. “No,” she says, grinning despite the way she shakes her head, and Maria grins back when the cream is cold against her skin again. 

“Do you remember when I came into your office, and I was still walking weird even though I was doing a very good job of covering it, and I practically threatened you to let me work out again?”

Maria hums. “Very clearly.” 

“And do you remember how you looked me dead in the eye and said ‘no’?” 

“I do, yes.” 

Natasha folds her arms in front of her. “That’s exactly what this is like.”

Maria raises one testing eyebrow, just slightly. “I’m asking to walk to the corner store.”

“And the nurses said short walks.” 

“We’re halfway there already.” 

“And we’ve still got to get all the way back.” She shoos her gently with her hands. “Come on. We’re done.” 

“You were never this strict about your own healing,” Maria says, despite the way she pivots to make their way back. 

“Which is why you should listen to me when I say something isn’t worth it.” She looks at her out of the corner of her eye, her face softening. “It’s longer than it seems. We’ll get there eventually. You don’t have to rush everything.” 

Maria sighs. “I know, I know. You’d think I’d never been incapacitated before.” 

“I’d be very impressed if you’d made it this far.” Really, she’s thankful that they’ve both made it this far alive. Every day she wonders how they did it. 

Maria doesn’t let them linger on the topic, and Natasha knows what it’s like to feel useless in your own body, to want yourself to heal faster. They’ve had to spend their lives in battles with gods and superhumans, and you can only watch someone shake off gunshot so many times before it has some sort of effect on your self worth alongside them. 

Instead, Maria’s hand finds itself in Natasha’s as they walk back, hidden by the trees and fields between Natasha’s house and the nearest town. They still walk slower than before, but Natasha is happy to match Maria’s pace over the uneven terrain, holding tighter when she stumbles. She squeezes back just as tightly, and she smiles at her here and there, the dappled lighting soft across her face. Her palms are still rough despite her rest and Natasha wonders how long it would take for their calluses to dissolve. She wonders if Maria could ever let go of the physical lifestyle even if they retired. She can imagine her doing yard work in the afternoons. 

“Natasha?” Maria asks after dinner, curled up together on her bed and watching a movie she’s barely paying attention to. Natasha only hums. “Do you want to stay?” 

She twists to face her, smiling slightly. “In my own house?” 

“No.” Maria can’t help smiling back. “In here. You don’t have to sleep upstairs if you don’t want to.” 

She’s not sure why the question feels so transparent. They’ve shared their beds more times than Maria can count, spending every moment together. She’d be lying if she said that each night she’s still terrified Natasha won’t make it back.

“Do you want me down here?” Natasha asks, and Maria wonders if she needs this sort of confirmation the same way she does herself. She still doesn’t think she could talk about it. 

“Yes,” she says instead, something tangible. Something she knows. “I sleep better with you.” 

“Aww.” Natasha grins. “How could I say no when you’re so sweet about it?” 

She leans up to kiss her, and Maria wonders where this lies – that they would kiss so easily, but Natasha wouldn’t assume that she would be fine to share a bed. She holds her close by the waist and hopes that her kisses speak for her. She hopes that her intentions are clear in the way she looks at her, the way she’s felt safe for the first time in her life. 

“Have you never had a hobby?” Natasha asks, trying so hard not to laugh that her face aches a little. 

“I’ve never had the time!” Maria replies, only halfway to pulling a muscle in frustration. “My hobbies were working out and paperwork.” 

“Those are sad hobbies, Maria.” 

“I am well aware.” 

“Well, why don’t you try something you can sit down doing? It’s better than driving yourself crazy.” 

Maria sighs. “Like what? If you tell me to start journaling I will start crying.” 

“Okay, no journals,” Natasha says through a laugh. “What about art? Reading? You could get really into bird watching out here. Clint is actually pretty good at that.” 

Maria looks back at her for a long time, the gears turning in her head. “Do you have books?” 

Natasha smiles wider. “They’re upstairs though.” 

She nods. “I can do stairs.” 

“You can. I’m still going to walk behind you though.” 

Maria finally breaks, the ghost of a smile for the first time all day. “That’s probably smart.” 

The stairs serve to make Maria feel a small amount better, getting up them with relative ease these days, and it turns out that Natasha has a fairly substantial library hiding in her lounge. 

“I didn’t know you were a book nerd.” 

“Half of it is nonfiction,” she argues. “But I like a good book when I have the time.”

Maria hums, bending to look at a lower shelf. She reaches out for one book in particular. “Good books?” she says, holding up a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey.

“You never know until you read it,” she says with a smirk before it falls. “It was a gift and I felt bad getting rid of it.” 

“Mhm.” Maria places it back in its slot. “You’re a real soft touch, aren’t you?” 

“Whatever you say,” she concedes, but she’s still smiling, and she thinks she’s never felt so soft in her life. 

Maria picks a few to bring downstairs in the end, and she brings her first choice out into the garden. Natasha has done a lovely job with it, and she lets Maria help with the easier jobs in the little vegetable patch they’ve got when she’s feeling up to it. Now, Maria sits under the apple tree and watches Natasha potter around between pages. The weather isn’t so warm, wrapped up in several layers herself, but Natasha’s shirt is tied around her waist and her arms glisten slightly in the setting sun. She asks Maria about her favourite vegetables and walks her through when they could plant them, and Maria watches her with eyes she knows would betray her.

She thinks she could get used to this sight. She thinks with every day that passes that she isn’t any closer to leaving. Natasha could kick her out now. She could safely leave her to Pepper, and she could find her own house, and they could go their separate ways until Maria is back to fighting order. But Natasha doesn’t. And Maria thinks, day by day, that she doesn’t look like she’s planning on it. 

Very few people know the location of Natasha’s home, and she isn’t exactly expecting a knock at the door whilst she’s making lunch. 

“Were you expecting company?” Maria asks, making her way around the kitchen island. Her hand still grazes the surface, but she’s much steadier on her feet these days. Steady enough that Natasha rarely sees that frustration in her face anymore. 

“No.” Natasha strides past her in a clear sign. 

Clint never knocks. He never even lets her know before he visits. And Fury is polite enough to arrange his visits beforehand, though they’ve been few and far between for reasons Maria has refused to explain. She really doesn’t fancy having to fight someone today, not before lunch.

She doesn’t bother to fetch her firearms, and she wonders if she should remember to care for them more often rather than let them rot in that box. She sort of hopes that she’ll be able to let them, even as she makes her way to the door with a kitchen knife in hand. 

She raises it as the door opens, held as steady as always towards–

Clint. 

“Hey!” he says, holding his hands up. “I thought we got over that years ago?” 

“You never knock,” she reminds him as she lowers the knife. 

“Well I didn’t wanna walk in on anything you two might be doing all alone out here.”

“She was shot. Through the stomach.”

“That never stopped you before.” 

She squints at him, half in the mind to stab him anyway. “We were making lunch,” she says instead. “Why are you here?” 

He lifts a small bag into view, heavy with some sort of bottle. “I thought you might be missing your best friend.” 

She rolls her eyes, smiling despite herself, and Clint steps through the door without further fuss, letting her close it behind him. 

“It’s only Clint,” Natasha calls as they get back to the kitchen. 

Maria is slicing fresh tomatoes for their lunch, a smile on her face as they return. They never did get around to buying clothes for her, and Natasha can’t say she dislikes the sight of her in borrowed clothes. 

“Only?” Clint implores, slugging Natasha in the shoulder. 

“You want a sandwich?” Natasha offers, ignoring him entirely. 

His eyebrows rise minutely, as if he thinks it might get him scolded. “I never thought I’d see Hill making sandwiches.”

“She’s good at them,” Natasha says, promptly ignoring the look Clint shoots her at the comment.

He’s still grinning when he turns back to Maria, knife still in hand. “Well, if you’re offering.” 

It’s pleasant afternoon with the three of them, spent in the garden in the summer sun. It’s such a far cry from the lives they’ve lived this far. It still doesn’t feel real. 

“We just need Phil,” Maria comments, raising a hand to keep the sun out of her eyes. “It’d be just like old times.” 

Clint laughs. “With a lot less guns.” 

“I can get you one,” Natasha offers, kicking him gently with the toe of her boot. 

“Nah. This is nicer.” 

He winks, and Natasha hates how well he knows her. He’s been trying to get her to see the merits of settling down for years, and she’s refused him every single time. Now, as her thigh presses against Maria’s, she thinks he was only ever too right. 

“You’re like a married couple,” he says as he makes to leave. “You’ve only been living together for a month.” 

“Shut up,” Natasha says, boxing him into the doorway. She ignores the way Maria had insisted on washing the dishes now ‘so that they wouldn’t have to think about it later.’

“Mhm.” He smiles again, in that way Natasha is so unused to seeing on anyone. She thinks she only gets it from him and Maria these days, and her own face betrays her every time, a smile tugging at her own lips. “She doesn’t look like she’s leaving, y’know.” 

She leans against the doorframe. “What makes you say that?” 

He glances over her shoulder, even though he can’t see Maria from his vantage point. “Spy’s intuition.” 

“Well I can’t argue with that,” Natasha teases despite the way it tugs at her chest, the way she wants to believe him. The way she thinks she does.  

“Look after her, yeah? More than just the gunshot.” 

“I think she looks after me more these days.” 

His face is soft before he leaves, and Natasha stays in the doorway to watch him to the end of the drive. 

“Did he forget anything this time?” Maria says from the sofa as Natasha returns, already sprawled comfortably to wait for her.

Natasha smiles at the sunglasses on the table. “He always does.” 

“Don’t leave,” Maria says, her hand fisted in Natasha’s shirt. 

Natasha laughs, bright and musical despite the tiredness in her limbs. “I have to make breakfast.” 

“Breakfast can wait.” 

“For what?” 

“Doesn’t matter.” Maria tugs her backwards, regaining the strength in her core, and Natasha lets herself be pulled back into a hug. “You’re warm.” 

“Use a blanket,” Natasha argues, despite the way she continues to smile. 

“I want you here,” she insists.

“Okay.” Natasha turns so that she can press a kiss to Maria’s chest, working her way up to her mouth.

Maria grins dopily, and Natasha thinks herself the only person in the world that has gotten to see this. She thinks this might be the first time in either of their lives that they’ve felt totally at home, totally safe. It makes her throat feel a little bit thick, if she’s honest. 

“We have to get up eventually. I get stiff if I sleep too long.” 

“Mhm.” Maria holds her a little tighter, kissing her one last time. “Fine, okay. Breakfast. I’ll make us coffee.”

“Thank you.” Natasha removes herself from her arms, feeling the absence much clearer than she ever mentions. She bends to press one last kiss to Maria’s hair. “You’ve always been a morning person. What happened?” 

“I never had a reason to want to stay in bed,” Maria admits as if it’s obvious. “There was always something more important to do, and sleep was never kind.”

Natasha hums her agreement, her chest tight around her feelings. All of these little confessions, day by day. She wonders how she’s still standing. She wonders how she isn’t crying at her knees. She wonders if she’ll find the words to ask her to stay, what this all means. 

Maria wraps herself around her as she makes them pancakes, sipping her drink in the most awkward way possible. “Can we go to the store today?” 

“We can go to the store whenever you want.” 

“Can we walk to the store today,” she tries. 

Natasha’s spatula pauses in the air, her face turning slightly, and Maria presses a kiss to her neck in persuasion. “We can walk to the store if you go easy on the workout later.” 

“I can agree to that. As long as you don’t show off again.” 

“What?” Natasha grins, flipping one of the pancakes. “This is the only time I’ll be able to do more crunches than you.” 

“And it’s because you’re cheating.” 

“You’re not helping your case,” Natasha teases.

Maria takes a reproachful sip of her coffee. “I will go easy on the crunches if we can walk to the store.” 

“Easy on the whole workout.” 

“Fine. But I’m buying green peppers.” 

Natasha grimaces slightly. “Okay. Deal.” 

“Deal,” Maria repeats with another kiss to her neck, an arm still slung around her waist to keep her close.

Music plays softly over a speaker and Maria sways them gently to it, and Natasha thinks that maybe she never has to ask what this means after all. This quiet life is nice, after all of the gunfire and anxiety. It might take them some time to adjust, but neither of them seem to be in a hurry to leave. They might match with more than just the scars on their body.