Archive of Our Own

“Where do you see yourself in five years?” Carol’s words were deadpan, but a quick glance in her direction confirmed that she was wearing her usual lopsided smirk, her eyes glittering like she knew a secret. It was a good look on her. Natasha put on a thoughtful expression, then abruptly snagged a pillow and threw it directly at Carol’s head. Carol snatched it out of the air, her smirk widening. “Thanks. I needed another one.” She added it to the truly ridiculous hoard she’d piled up on the couch behind her, making a production of settling back against them. Somehow, her bare feet made their way onto Natasha’s lap.

The television burbled quietly to itself, unheeded. “Through dangers untold, through hardships unnumbered…”

Natasha raised an eyebrow at the not entirely unexpected, nor at all unwelcome imposition, but elected not to comment. Instead, she shook her head and said, “That’s a terrible question. Are you sure you don’t want to ask another?”

“Nah, I’m good,” Carol drawled, wiggling her toes against Natasha’s thigh until Natasha rolled her eyes and started rubbing her thumbs in slow circles on the sole of one of the offending appendages. “Mmm,” Carol hummed contentedly. “Now I’m definitely good.”

“I’m glad,” Natasha murmured, not bothering to hide the fact that she actually was. Even now, years after making the choice to be more… open, she still found herself tempted to moderate her reactions; to hide herself even from those she cared about. Some habits, it seemed, were hard to break.

“So, you gonna answer?” Carol’s smirk broadened into the epitome of a shit-eating grin. “Or are you too chickenshit?”

“Bold words from a woman whose feet are at my mercy.” To illustrate her point, she trailed a fingertip lightly over the tender skin of Carol’s arch, smirking back at her as she twitched.

Carol glowered but didn’t pull her feet away, huffily tense until Natasha resumed her previous ministrations. “Still not an answer,” she murmured, sighing contentedly as she sank into her pile of cushions.

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Fine. If it’ll make you stop whining about it, I’ll answer your stupid question.” She made a production out of considering her words, drawing it out just long enough for Carol’s brow to furrow in the way it did whenever she was starting to become impatient. “In five years time, I see myself dealing with disaster upon disaster — often more than one at once — while I try desperately to keep a thousand and one metaphorical plates spinning so that our fragile bureaucratic machine doesn’t simply grind to a halt. Or, knowing my luck, violently explode.”

She shrugged; a deliberately languid motion that belied the knots of tension in her neck and shoulders, the sudden restlessness prickling beneath her skin. Even the thought of all the work she was currently neglecting was enough to make guilt twist in her gut; to stoke the fires of the driving need to do something productive with her time. Later, she assuaged it, or tried to, dryly continuing, “In other words, much the same place as I am now.” Her pause there was as much to allow her to take a breath and push aside the nagging guilt as it was for effect. Carelessly, almost as an afterthought, she added, “Unless, of course, I’m dead.”

“Well aren’t you a ray of sunshine,” Carol drawled.

“I’m Russian. It is the way of my people.”

Carol regarded her in silence for a few moments and then shrugged. “Okay. Now ask me.”

“Ask you what?”

She rolled her eyes. “The question.”

Carol clearly had something on her mind. Natasha idly considered various ways of finding out what it was, but in the end opted to simply play her game. “Where do you see yourself in five years, Carol Danvers?”

“What an interesting question.” Carol’s smirk was back. She rearranged her pile of cushions a little so she could sit up a little straighter, although her feet stayed in Natasha’s lap. “I’ll have to think about it. Let me see… In five years time, I’ll still be totally, unbelievably awesome. Maybe even more awesome than I am right now, honestly. And I’ll still be zooming around the universe, putting out fires both metaphorical and literal. Although I’m hoping things will be less crazy by then.”

“We can certainly hope.”

“Who are you and what have you done with little miss Debbie Downer I know and love?”

“Just because I plan for the worst, that doesn’t mean I can’t hope for the” —her breath snagged in her throat as the last part of Carol’s sentence caught up with her, and she couldn’t help pausing for the brief moment it took for her to reject the word as a mere figure of speech, worth no particular weight or consideration— “best,” she finished smoothly.

Carol was studying her, something intense in her eyes. Feeling strangely off-balance, Natasha watched Carol watching her, letting the silence stretch between them like the saltwater taffy they’d bought at that dinky little fairground Carol had all-but dragged her to last fall.

It fell to Carol to break it.

“Not gonna touch that, huh?” she murmured, and now she did reclaim her feet, pulling them back so she could change position.

Natasha felt the couch shift with Carol’s movements; found herself leaning in as Carol settled onto the cushion next to her. Every cell of her body suddenly seemed to be on high alert; hyper-aware of the pressure of Carol’s body against hers. Carol always ran hot — maybe a side-effect of the cosmic forces surging beneath her skin, or maybe not — but now Natasha felt as though that slight contact might be enough to make her burst into flames.

“I,” she started, and then stalled, having completely forgotten where she was going to go with that. Some super spy I am, she castigated herself, scrambling to recover her composure as she cast about for a suitable response. “What do you mean?” Nailed it.

“I mean…” Carol began, slowly threading the fingers of her right hand through those of Natasha’s left. “That…” Sparks jumped in Natasha’s stomach as their palms pressed together. One part of her marvelled that such a simple gesture could produce such a reaction even as another part of her scolded herself for acting like some crush-stricken child. “Whatever else I might doing in five years…” Carol drew Natasha’s hand upwards so she could place a featherlight kiss on Natasha’s calloused knuckles. Meeting Natasha’s gaze over their linked hands, she paused for one breath, two, three. She might not have been glowing right now, but there were galaxies in the depths of her eyes; intense enough to make Natasha’s heart judder in her chest. But then Carol smirked and said, “I hope you’ll still be one of them.”

Caught off-guard, Natasha let out a hiccuping snort of a laugh. “Sure you won’t get bored of me? I am only human, after all, and you’re—” She cut herself off before she could let the next word slip, instead motioning towards Carol with her free hand, the gesture encompassing everything that she was.

“Never,” Carol proclaimed grandly, but then seemed to falter, her expression turning serious. “Look,” she said, matter-of-factly, “I know we agreed at the beginning that this was just a friends with benefits dealio, no muss no fuss, but, well, I’ve maybe, kinda, sorta fallen madly in love with you.” She shrugged unrepentantly. “Whoops.”

Natasha froze. Somewhere inside, one of the many, many boxes in which she put the parts of herself it was necessary to cast aside — the dangerous things, the childish things — started struggling against its chains, the lid opening wide enough to let out something perilously close to hope.

“What?”

Was that a flicker of uncertainty in Carol’s expression? No, it couldn’t be. Could it?

“I like you, Natasha Romanoff,” she said slowly. “I like-like you. And you don’t have to do anything about it, but I thought you should know. In case, you know, it changed anything. With us.” She paused there, giving Natasha the chance to speak, but by now that box had burst wide open, and the tide of emotions bursting from it had swallowed all of her words. Carol grimaced. “Well, now this is awkward,” she muttered. She seemed to sag for a moment, then straightened her back, releasing Natasha’s hand. “Maybe I should just… go. Give you some space to think.”

She started to shift her weight in preparation for getting up, and a jolt of sheer panic arced through Natasha like electricity.

“No!” she blurted out.

“No?” Carol echoed, a frown creasing her brow even as a glimmer of hope sparked to life in her gaze. “You don’t want me to go?”

Natasha tried to speak, tried to find a way to tell Carol how the last thing she wanted was for her to leave, but words still failed her, and so instead she turned to action. Reaching up, she twisted her fingers in Carol’s shirt and pulled her close, claiming her lips with a slightly clumsy, slightly off-centre, but utterly heartfelt kiss. Carol jerked against her, and then adjusted position slightly so that they fit together just right, kissing her back with a passion that damn near took Natasha’s breath away. Carol tasted like peppermint and caramel; like the candy and popcorn she’d consumed in vast quantities as the two of them watched the now-forgotten movie. Her mouth was hot and eager; Carol meeting and matching Natasha’s passion with her own.

I could live in this moment forever, Natasha found herself thinking.

But forever eventually came to an end, the two of them drawing back from the kiss to stare at each other. Carol’s pupils were wide, wide open, her hair tousled and her cheeks flushed, and Natasha was pretty damn certain she was in much the same state. Her heart was racing like a runaway train, thudding against her ribcage as though it was about to break out and soar.

Carol drew in a sudden deep breath, and with that the spell muting Natasha’s voice was broken.

“Don’t you dare leave,” she said, low and fierce.

Carol laughed — a breathless, high-pitched, hiccupy sound — and drew back slightly, reclaiming some of her swagger. Despite the insouciant smirk on her face, though, there was something raw and vulnerable in her eyes. “So… what? Business as usual?”

For a brief moment, Natasha was tempted to say yes; to shove those complicated, messy, immature feelings back down in their box where they belonged. Just for a moment. Then she squared her shoulders, lifted her chin and proclaimed, “I like-like you too, Carol Danvers.”

“Oh.” Carol’s smile spread wide, the expression lighting up her entire face even more than the unearthly glow blooming under her skin and arcing along her hair, which stirred as if caught in an unfelt breeze. “Well then.”

A wicked glint in Carol’s eyes was all the warning Natasha had before she found herself swept up and gently lifted from the ground. She may or may not have let out a sound that, if one were completely and utterly uncharitable, might possibly with not complete inaccuracy have been referred to as a yelp. Whatever it was, it was instantly muffled by Carol’s lips on hers.

Natasha returned the kiss enthusiastically.

I was wrong, she thought distantly, dizzily, as desire coursed through her like a raging wildfire. This is the moment I could live in forever.

“Tasha? Tasha, are you awake?” Unseen in the darkness of the dormitory, Natalia rolled her sore and gritty eyes and said nothing. She had a cramp in her calf, the bruise on her hip had started throbbing again and her nose itched, but she held her position, knowing that even the slightest movement would only encourage Vera. Time passed — a mere handful of slow breaths; just enough for her to hope that was the end of it (and, maybe, to be just a little disappointed) — but then, “Pssst! Natasha!”

“Quiet,” Natalia murmured back. “Do you want to wake the whole dorm?”

“You are awake!”

“No I am not, and nor should you be. Go to sleep, Vera.”

“I can’t sleep.”

Natalia held in a sigh. “Then just lay there quietly until morning and don’t disturb the rest of us.” Since the possibility of subterfuge had flown completely out the window, she flexed her cramped calf, shifted position to ease the pressure on at least that particular bruise and rubbed her nose until it stopped itching.

“It’s too cold.”

Natalia opened her mouth to tell the other girl she wouldn’t notice the cold if she slept, but something made her reconsider her words. It was cold; really cold. And their blankets weren’t nearly enough to keep the chill at bay. ‘You are agents of the Red Room,’ Madame Kazakova intoned severely in the back of her mind. ‘It would not do for you to become soft.’

Fuck Madame Kazakova, she thought rebelliously.

“Verochka, would you…” Her mouth was dry all of a sudden and she refused to acknowledge why. “D’you want to get in with me?” She winced to herself at how shy, how hopeful her words sounded, at least to her own ears. Partly to distract Vera from noticing, and partly as a reminder to herself, she hurried to add, “Just for a short while, until we warm up a little. We can’t go to sleep like that.”

Madame took a very dim view of such things, and Natalia had no wish to suffer her wrath once again.

“I thought you’d never ask!” Vera exclaimed — quietly, thank the saints — following the words with soft, breathy laughter that made Natalia’s heart seem to stutter in her chest. Behave, she told it crossly. I’m fourteen years old! I am not a child. There was a rustling of sheets from the bed across the way, and then near-silent footsteps, and finally Vera slid under the covers beside her. “Just until we’re warm enough to be able to sleep,” she whispered, her breath tickling Natalia’s ear.

“Just for a short while,” Natalia agreed, kicking herself mentally when she realised that she was repeating herself.

They had to shift around a little to find a position that would let them fit in the narrow bed without one or both of them hanging off the edge, and Natalia’s breath hissed through her teeth as Vera’s sharp elbow found the fresh bruises on her ribs.

“Oh! I’m so sorry. Does it hurt badly? Do you think they could be broken? Maybe I should take a look. Or I could help you to the infirmary if you—”

“It’s fine,” Natalia said quickly. “The doctor said they were just bruises.” She scowled to herself in the darkness. “Anyway, it was my own fault for being too slow.”

“You were outnumbered,” Vera said, and despite the softness of her tone, there was a stubborn edge to the words that somehow managed to blunt the edge of Natalia’s self-directed anger. “They were grown men. It was not a fair fight.”

“Life isn’t fair. And if it had been real, if it hadn’t been a training exercise, then I would have been dead. Or worse.” She allowed herself to huff out a frustrated breath. “I should have been better. I need to be better.”

Vera curled into Natalia’s side and wrapped one arm gently around her body, enfolding her in a light embrace. Natalia found herself relaxing into it, her eyes drifting closed as some warm, soft feeling settled inside her like a contented kitten. She should have banished it, she knew, but instead she indulged in her shame. This is wrong, she told herself. More importantly, it was a weakness that could be used against her. And yet, despite that, despite everything, despite knowing better, she couldn’t bring herself to put an end to it.

“You already work so hard,” Vera murmured.

“And you don’t? I’ve seen you, Verochka. I’ve seen you practicing your acrobatics outside of training time. I’ve seen you picking locks blindfolded, over and over and over again, until you can practically do it in your sleep. I’ve seen you—“ She broke off; steadied her voice. “You work hard too.”

Silence followed her words. She counted the length of it by her breaths, keeping them slow and measured. Her count reached five before Vera spoke again. “What choice do I have? What choice do any of us have?”

To serve is an honour. Only the weak would choose otherwise if given the chance that has been given to us. We are lucky, that we are permitted to dedicate our lives to the greater good. The words sat on the tip of Natalia’s tongue. She believed them, she did, but right at this moment they felt oddly hollow. She couldn’t bring herself to profane the air between them by speaking them aloud.

“Let’s not talk about work,” she said instead.

“Agreed.” A brief pause and then, “Hey, do you know what next week is?” The words crackled with suppressed excitement.

Natalia couldn’t resist turning her head so she could study Vera’s face as best as she could in the darkness. As if she hadn’t already committed her crooked smile and warm brown eyes to memory a thousand times over. “I don’t know,” she said, not really bothering to search her memory for the answer. She knew that Vera desperately wanted to enlighten her. “What is it?”

“It’s Maslenitsa!”

“Oh.”

“Oh? Is that all you have to say?”

“What do you want me to say? Madame Kazakova isn’t going to give us the week off to go to some stupid festival.”

“First of all, it’s not stupid. It’s wonderful. A whole week of singing and dancing and games and the most unbelievably incredible food. And second of all, I wasn’t exactly thinking about asking permission.”

Natalia started to jerk upright, remembered belatedly that Vera was curled around her and froze again, biting her lip as her sore ribs complained. Carefully, she settled back down, tension thrumming in her sore and strained muscles.

“You’re going to sneak out? Verochka, that’s crazy. Do you want to end up in the Box again? Because that’s how you end up in the Box.”

“Only if I get caught. And I was thinking — hoping — that… maybe you could come with me?”

Yes, Natalia wanted to say. Or, at least the stupid part of her did.

“Me,” was what she said, her voice flat to hide the way her ridiculous heart leapt in her chest. “Wonderful. We can keep each other company when we’re both thrown in the Box.”

“If you’re with me, we won’t get caught.” Vera spoke the words confidently, like she truly believed that. Then again, she’d had exactly the same training as Natalia; as all the other girls. Every last one of them could speak the most barefaced lies as though they were God’s honest truth. Except that Vera wouldn’t lie to her. Not here; not like this. But the fact that she believes doesn’t make it true. Before Natalia could say that, though, Vera said something else; the words so quiet that, even as close as they were, Natalia had to strain her ears to make them out. “And I thought it would be nice for us to go together.”

Yes, the stupid part of Natalia’s brain said again. Yes, I’ll go with you. I don’t even care if we get caught.

‘No,’ she tried to say. ‘It’s not worth the risk.’

“I’ll think about it,” was what she actually said.

“That’s all I ask.”

Vera sounded ridiculously pleased for such a noncommittal answer. Natalia rolled her eyes again, but she could feel the fond smile tugging at the corners of her lips. She resisted for a moment, but then with an inward shrug, she set it free. No one will see, she reassured herself. No one will know. Not even Verochka. Guilt pricking her like needles, Natalia allowed her body to relax against her comrade’s, painfully hyperaware of every single point of contact between them. Her heart fluttered with an uneasy mixture of shame and excitement, and it was all she could do to stop her breath quickening with something she wasn’t supposed to be feeling. This is wrong, she told herself hopelessly, helplessly. This is weakness. Why, then, did it feel so right?

As always, she had no answer other than the obvious: there was some flaw in her making, and none of the Red Room’s harsh training had been able to flense it out of her. Perhaps she should go to Madame Kazakokva and confess her sin. Perhaps that would be better, in the long run. Perhaps Madame would even be lenient if she offered it up voluntarily, rather than waiting for one of the others to turn her in. Perhaps, perhaps. Always perhaps. She already knew that she would do no such thing. In any event, worrying about such things was not conducive to getting a good night’s rest.

Locking away the disquieting thoughts in one of her mental boxes, she focused on her body; breathing slow and deep and even as she took inventory of its damage both new and old. There was nothing serious; nothing that would impair her in any significant way. She would be sore for a day or too, but what did that matter? Pain was irrelevant. So is pleasure, she reminded herself, cataloguing her body’s reactions to Vera’s proximity just as dispassionately as she’d catalogued her injuries. It was nothing serious. A phase, perhaps. A brief, hormone-induced period of confusion that would surely pass in time. And if it didn’t, then she would simply bury it in one of her many, many boxes and never think of it again. It was as simple as that.

And, in the meantime, where was the crime in huddling up with a comrade for warmth? She certainly did feel warmer now, her limbs taking on a pleasant lassitude as her eyelids grew heavy. For a brief, blissful moment, the temptation to just let herself drift away was almost overwhelming, but somehow she found it in herself to resist.

“Vera,” she murmured softly. Vera’s slow, slightly snuffly breathing didn’t change. “Verochka,” she tried again, tapping her wrist. “You mustn’t fall asleep.”

“ ’M not asleep,” came the drowsy response. “Just resting my eyes.”

“Maybe it’s time for you to go and ‘rest your eyes’ in your own bed. You should be warm enough to sleep now.”

“Five more minutes,” Vera mumbled, pressing her face into Natalia’s shoulder. “Then I’ll go.”

“Well…” Natalia knew she should insist, but somehow instead she found herself saying, “Okay. Five more minutes. But that’s all.”

Five more minutes won’t do any harm, she told herself. All she had to do was not fall—

“Nat, wake up! Snap out of it! Can you hear me? We’re running out of time!”

Natalia jerked upright, or tried to, a weight across her body checking her motion. There was a brief moment of disorientation — whose voice was that, where was she; why did shadows seem to writhe at the edges of her vision? — but then the dormitory snapped into place around her. Turning her head, she met Vera’s wide, startled eyes, belatedly realising that light was streaming through the cracks in the dormitory’s heavy curtains. The sound of footsteps and murmured voices drifted in from outside, and she reacted instinctively, shoving Vera out of her bed. Vera’s breath hissed audibly through her teeth, but she landed silent as a cat on the hard tile, remaining in a half crouch as she scuttled back to her own bed. She just about made it there by the time the shrill sound of the morning bell echoed through the compound. Natalia’s heart was pounding like a drum as she got up and went about her morning routine with all the other girls.

Was that a glint of suspicion in Olena’s eyes? Was Ygritte looking at her with even more disdain than usual? Did Rosa’s muttered curses hold some new significance this morning of all mornings? Either way, there was no point in worrying about it. Either someone saw, or they didn’t. All she and Vera could do was behave normally, and hope that was enough to allay any suspicions of impropriety.

Stupid, she castigated herself. So fucking stupid. What had she been thinking? What had Vera been thinking? If Natalia hadn’t woken before the bell… But she had. Maybe she’d heard the voices in her slumber, or maybe it was just the years of getting up with the dawn. Something tugged at her memory briefly — a voice calling out to her, maddeningly familiar — but then it was was gone again, slipping like smoke through her grasp. It probably wasn’t important. What was important was that they’d had a close call, she and Vera, and they needed to be more careful.

We will be more careful, she promised herself, which she supposed meant no sneaking off together to the Maslenitsa celebrations.

She told herself that she wasn’t disappointed.

Maybe it was the way Steve’s lips quirked up ever so slightly at the corners, or maybe it was the way he loomed oh-so-casually in her office doorway. Or maybe she just knew him, but when she leaned back and met his gaze, a feeling of great foreboding swept over her.

“So,” he said nonchalantly; too nonchalantly. “You and Carol, huh?”

“Me and Carol what?” Natasha said, deliberately focusing on the screen in front of her.

Movement in her peripheral vision told her that Steve was peeling himself out of the doorway. Closing the door behind him, he crossed the short distance to her desk and settled himself into a chair. (She wondered if he was aware that, at times like this, when it was just the two of them, he sometimes still moved like the skinny kid he’d used to be, before Dr Erskine’s formula gave him a body to match his spirit.)

“You’re together.”

“No, we’re not.”

“Uhuh.”

“We’re not,” she insisted.

“I’m not blind. Or deaf.” He grimaced. “And the walls here really aren’t as soundproofed as I’d like them to be.”

“Is that so?” she said coolly, despite the fluttering sensation in her stomach that still she couldn’t seem to rid herself of, no matter how hard she tried. Abandoning the pretence of concentrating on her work, she leaned back in her chair and met his gaze. “Well, maybe you didn’t hear what you thought you heard.”

“Nat,” he said reprovingly. “Tell me it’s none of my fucking business and I won’t say another word, but don’t gaslight me. Not after everything we’ve been through together.”

“Language,” she drawled, gratified by his wince.

“Are you ever going to let that go?” he asked, somewhat plaintively.

“Nope, never.”

He gave a loud, long-suffering sigh — she was, like, ninety per cent sure he mainly did it to amuse her rather than because he actually minded her gentle poking — but then his expression sobered again. “So, what’s it to be? Talk about it or tell me to shut my trap?”

In the end, it wasn’t a difficult decision. If she was honest with herself — and she generally tried to be — she’d made it the first time she invited Carol back to her quarters in the Avengers compound, rather than suggesting they go somewhere more discreet.

That fluttering sensation still didn’t subside.

“There’s not all that much to talk about,” she said, shrugging. Steve frowned, and she hurried onwards before he could speak. “We’re just friends with benefits, that’s all.”

“Friends with benefits?” he echoed.

“Yeah,” she shot back. “Do you need me to explain what that is, grandpa?”

He laughed. “No, you don’t need to explain friends with benefits to me. I know what that is.”

“Oh? Sounds like there’s a story there. C’mon, Rogers, spill.”

“Don’t change the subject,” he said mock-sternly, pointing at her.

“Who, me?”

“Yes, you.” His expression softened, his eyes crinkling a little around the edges. “I’m happy for you,” he said softly.

“Thanks,” she muttered, feeling awkward, but a happy kind of awkward.

The mischievous glint in Steve’s eyes was all the warning she had before he said, slyly, “And, you know, I’m pretty sure your mood’s improved now you’re getting some on the regular.”

Without looking, she snatched up the stress ball gathering dust on her desk — a ‘present’ from Steve, in point of fact — and threw it directly at his head. Naturally, he caught it.

“Asshole.”

“Maybe,” he said, throwing the stress ball back to her, somewhat more gently than she’d thrown it at him. “But I’m an asshole who cares about you.”

“No need to get mushy.”

“And,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken, “I’m glad you’ve found someone who can make you happy.”

“Don’t go picking out a best man’s tux, Rogers. It’s not anything serious. Like I said, it’s just friends with benefits.”

“I’d be your best man? Really?”

She rolled her eyes. “Dork.” She carefully didn’t think about the other person she might have asked to fulfil that role in the highly unlikely event that it ever became necessary. Flashing her that cocky, shit-eating grin that was more ‘Steve from Brooklyn’ then ‘Captain America’, he started to say something else, but was interrupted by a knock on the door. “Come in,” she called out, trying not to sigh as she wondered what kind of crisis had arisen that it required a face to face.

“Hey, Natasha,” said the last person in the world she’d been expecting to see. “So, I was in the neighbourhood, and— Oh, sorry. Didn’t realise you had company. Captain.” Carol mock-saluted.

“Captain,” Steve echoed gravely, and then smiled. “The rest of the universe behaving itself?”

“As much as it ever does. But certain people who shall not be named strongly suggested that I take a day off, so I thought I’d stop by.”

“Earth does have its attractions, I suppose.” And anyone other than Natasha might have missed the way he flicked his gaze briefly in her direction, or the way his eyes crinkled just the tiniest amount, but to her he might as well have waggled his eyebrows and sing-songed, ‘Guess who’s getting a booty-call.’ Not that he would’ve phrased it like that, but still.

“That it does,” Carol agreed. She smiled at Natasha and it was like being hit by a truck, or maybe like being electrocuted, her whole body suddenly lighting up with, not just anticipation, not just the knowledge of the amazing sex they were going to have later, but something else. Something soft and warm and utterly and completely overwhelming.

Oh, fuck me.

“Hey, Carol,” Natasha said, surprised and yet not surprised at all to find a smile on her face without her intention. “Good to see you.”

Steve looked from Natasha to Carol and back to Natasha, and there was that shit-eating grin again.

Fuck me, she thought again, cursing as certain parts of her anatomy informed her that, actually, they were very much in favour of that course of action.

“You too,” said Carol. “But I don’t want to interrupt if you’re in the middle of something. I just thought I’d let you know that I’m around, see if you want to grab something to eat later.”

“Sure, sounds good.” It was an immense relief that the words came out sounding perfectly normal and not — as she’d feared — too loud or too high pitched. “I just have a couple of things to finish up here, but I shouldn’t be too much longer. Text you when I’m done?”

“I’ll be waiting. Captain.”

“Captain,” Steve replied, the mischief in his eyes surely bright enough that anyone could have seen it, but if Carol noticed she apparently forbore to comment, merely giving them a cheery wave and closing the door behind her.

Natasha waited a beat until she heard Carol’s footsteps heading away, and then she dropped her head into her hands. “Don’t say it, Steve,” she warned, her voice muffled by her palms.

“Say what?” he asked, faking innocence.

Lifting her head slightly, she shot him a death glare. “Anything.”

He laughed like she’d just told the funniest joke in the world. “I don’t think I need to,” he said, leaning forward a little in his seat to study her face. “That expression says it all.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she muttered, knowing she was well past any hope of being able to bluff her way out of this.

“Liar.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Oh, someone’s here’s about to get fucked, but it’s definitely not me.” She shot upright, glaring at him in indignant disbelief. He laughed again; a great loud belly laugh. “Oh, I really, really wish I could take a picture of your face right now.”

“Don’t,” she snapped without thinking about it.

“I won’t,” he assured her, sobering. And, softer, his expression earnest and open in a way she’d never seen from anyone else, “I wouldn’t.”

The sudden tension in her neck and shoulders began to ease. “I know you wouldn’t,” she muttered.

For a breath or two, they just looked at each other, and then Steve smiled again, this one fond and almost… proud? “You” —the tension rushed back in as if it had never left, her breath catching in her throat as she silently pleaded with him not to say it; not to say that word— “like her, don’t you? You really like her.”

“Yeah,” she admitted, feeling like she stood at the edge of a great precipice. “Yeah, I really do.”

“Are you going to do anything about it?”

“Does ignoring it until it goes away count as doing something?”

“Natasha,” he began reproachfully, but she put up a hand, cutting him off.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I haven’t decided. I kind of maybe only just realised how bad I had it.”

“You make it sound like a disease.”

“Isn’t it?” He frowned, and she said, a little more sharply than was maybe warranted, “I’m joking, Rogers. Don’t get your boxers in a bunch.”

For a moment, she thought he might call her on that not quite lie — did it even count as a lie if only part of her didn’t believe it? — but he apparently changed his mind. “If you want to talk about it, you know where I am.”

“Poking your nose in someone else’s business, no doubt.” But her tone was fond, and she smiled to take any sting out of the words. “Thanks. I appreciate the offer. And you know the same goes for you, right, if you need to talk?”

“I know, Nat. And thanks.” They just sat a moment, and Natasha actually felt… okay. Sure, her stupid heart had just thrown her the mother of all curve balls, but that was okay. It wasn’t the end of the world, no matter how apocalyptic it felt. It wasn’t something she had to deal with tonight, or even anytime soon. And, in the meantime… “Anyway,” Steve said, getting to his feet. “I’d better get going. I wouldn’t want to keep you from your date.”

“See you around, Rogers,” she said, her mind already returning to the few tasks she had left on today’s itinerary. It took her a moment to realise he was still standing in the doorway. “Was there something else?”

“Just one thing,” he said, his eyes glinting mischievously. He checked the corridor behind him, cleared his throat portentously, and then softly chanted, “Carol and Natasha, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G."

“Steve!”

“Have a good night, Nat.” And then he shut the door. She heard him whistling a jaunty tune as he strolled away.

She shook her head, grinning. “Asshole.”

“Tonight,” Vera muttered, under cover of spotting Natasha on the weights.

“Tonight?” Natalia repeated, mingled dread and anticipation looming over her like a raincloud. She glanced around the room, but no one seemed to be paying them any undue attention, not even Olena. Nevertheless, unease shivered down her spine.

“We’re sneaking out to the festival. I have a plan.”

“What? No, Verochka. We talked about this. It’s too—”

“I’m going,” she interrupted, her mouth set in a grim line. “You can come with me or not, but I am doing this.” She paused her moment, her expression softening. “I’d prefer it if you came, but I understand if you’d rather not take the risk.”

Concerned, Natalia studied Vera while she continued to lift weights, her body moving more or less on autopilot. Distantly, she was aware of a burning in her muscles, but it was within acceptable parameters so she simply ignored it. “Is something wrong?” she asked quietly. “Did something happen?”

She hadn’t heard of Vera getting herself in any trouble, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Madame Kazakova didn’t always turn disciplinary actions into public examples.

Vera scowled and didn’t meet Natalia’s eyes. “It’s nothing,” she muttered, which certainly wasn’t a ‘no’, but Natalia wasn’t going to push. At least not for the moment.

“You’re really going to do this?” she said instead, her stomach twisting uncomfortably.

A pause, and then, “Yes.”

Natalia took a breath, her healing bruises twinging as if to remind her that actions had consequences. “Okay,” she said through stiff lips. “I’ll go with you.”

Vera’s head snapped up, her eyes glimmering with hope. As their gazes met, Natalia’s heart thudded against her rib cage and she cursed herself for a fool.

“Really?” Vera said, a small smile dancing about her lips.

“Yeah.”

I am such an idiot.

“See? Was that so hard?” Vera linked arms with Natalia, gazing up at her from beneath her thick woollen hat. Some strands of brown hair straggled out from underneath the hat, framing her pale face. Natalia had to stifle the sudden urge to tuck them away; maybe to gently cup one cold-reddened cheek with her hand.

“Guess not,” she muttered, jamming her hands into her pockets to warm them. And maybe also to stop them from doing anything they shouldn’t. Not for the first time, she cursed her body for this weakness, praying to a god she didn’t believe in to release her from this torment. And then she cursed herself again for being so dramatic. “We still have to get back, though,” she reminded Vera. “And that’s assuming no one misses us in the interim.”

Vera rolled her eyes. “It will be fine. I told you, I have a plan.”

“No plan survives contact with the enemy.”

“Stop being such a wet blanket. Anyway, we’re here now, so we might as well enjoy ourselves. That way, even if we do get caught, it at least will have been worth it.”

Natalia might have protested further, but the look in Vera’s eyes stilled the words on her tongue, and she swallowed them back. “You’re right,” she said, and forced a smile onto her lips. It wasn’t as difficult as she would have expected. “Let’s go and have some fun.”

When Vera’s face lit up like the rising sun, she couldn’t help thinking to herself that seeing her smile like that was already worth it. Stupid, she castigated herself. You’re acting like a child. Even so, as the two of them strode arm in arm towards the brightly coloured stalls and cheerful crowd, she found her steps light and her spirits high. It wasn’t just being with Vera, of course; it was the absence of guards, of the prying eyes and ears of the other students; of Madame Kazakova. She felt… not free, not precisely (‘there is nowhere you could run that the Red Room cannot find you’) but like the bars of her cage had opened up a little, allowing her to at least see the sky. It was… nice.

By her side, Vera was chattering happily about the food she wanted to try; about how wonderful the town square looked, strewn as it was with bright streamers and constellations of tiny lights. “Cocoa,” she blurted out suddenly. “Let’s go and get some hot cocoa.”

“Fine by me.” Spring might have been just around the corner, but winter had yet to loose its grip, and their breath misted in the air. A short while later, the two of them were sipping on hot spiced cocoa. There was something vaguely familiar about the bitter-sweet richness of it, something that tugged maddeningly at her memory, but Natalia couldn’t quite place it. A time before the Red Room, perhaps?

(“Well that’s just crazy talk. Hot chocolate should be sweet enough to make your teeth hurt, and topped with enough whipped cream to make your arteries cry. No ifs, buts or maybes.”

“This is cocoa, not hot chocolate.”

“Even worse. Why the hell would you choose cocoa over hot chocolate? Like I said: crazy talk.”

“So the big, bad Captain Marvel is too chickenshit to even give it a try?”

“I didn’t say that.” There was that smirk again, sending little sparks of electricity arcing along Natasha’s nerves. “After all, I do seem to have discovered a taste for Russian… delicacies.”)

No, it still eluded her. No matter: it wasn’t important.

Natalia was content to follow Vera’s lead, sampling sweet cakes and buns and whatever other treats took the other girl’s fancy, getting her hair braided, admiring the carved figures, jewellery and miscellaneous other knickknacks on display and playing silly games. Verochka’s excitement warmed her almost more than the spiced cocoa had. It was… nice, seeing her like this. Rosy-cheeked and with ribbons in her hair, she could have been just another festival-goer.

Natalia watched her as she debated what to do next, her chest tight with some stupid, childish emotion. Pointlessly, futilely, she found herself wishing that this moment could last forever; that they could just… not go back. But that was impossible, of course she knew it was impossible, and even if it hadn’t been, she wasn’t a traitor. Neither of them were traitors.

And so, with a heavy heart, she cleared her throat and said, “We should probably be getting back soon.”

Vera broke off mid-ramble, seeming to hunch in on herself a little. She sighed heavily. “Yeah, I guess. But just a few minutes longer? Please?”

Natalia didn’t have the hard to say no to those pleading eyes. “A few minutes longer,” she agreed. “But that’s—”

Something plucked at her attention, making her lose her train of thought. Before she could figure out what seemed so urgent — and without even intending to move — her feet were suddenly carrying her away through the crowd. Only dimly aware of Vera calling after her, and then running after her, she couldn’t make herself speak; wouldn’t have known what to say if she had. Half-panicked, half lost in a daze, she weaved her way between people and stalls until she found herself standing before one of the festival’s many entertainers.

This woman… She was a storyteller, resplendent in a red, blue and gold dress. The ribbons braided through her golden hair glittered in the light, making it seem as though her head was wreathed in flame. Natalia had never set eyes on her before; she would have sworn to it. And yet, there was something oddly familiar about her…

“All night,” the storyteller said, “the girl bent over the bed where the handsome youth lay sleeping, and wept bitter tears.” Her eyes seemed to focus on Natalia, seemed to bore into her soul. “ ‘Awake and rise, Finist, my bright Falcon,’ she cried. ‘I have come at last to thee. I have left my little father and my cruel sisters, and I have searched through three times nine lands and a hundred Tzardoms for thee, my beloved!’ “ The words seemed to hang in the air as the storyteller paused, and there was a long, still moment where the world seemed to hold its breath… but then the moment passed. The storyteller continued. “But Finist slept on and heard nothing, and so the whole long night passed away.”

“There you are.” Vera’s voice in her ear made her start. “Why did you run off like that?”

“I didn’t…” Why had she run off? It wasn’t like storyteller was going anywhere. Embarrassment prickled over her skin. Foolish, she castigated herself. “I wanted to listen to the storyteller. Sorry.”

“Oh, okay.” They stood there as the woman finished her rendition of the ‘The Feather of Finist the Falcon’. “She’s very good,” Vera said, as they and the rest of the listeners applauded.

“Yeah. Uh, sorry I just up and left like that.”

“That’s okay. I was briefly worried you’d spotted one of the guards, but then I figured you would’ve said something if you had.”

“Of course I would have,” Natalia said firmly. “I wouldn’t just leave you.”

“I know you wouldn’t,” Vera said softly. She smiled, and Natalia was helpless to do anything but smile back as she took Natalia’s hands in hers. “I trust you, Natasha.”

“And I trust you, Verochka.”

Somehow, the two of them had moved in close, so close that Natalia could feel Vera’s breath on her lips. This close, she could see the small bump on Vera’s nose from where it had been broken and healed a little crooked. This close, she could see that Vera’s pupils were blown wide, could hear her swallow as if with nervousness.

Why is she nervous?

Natalia didn’t bother asking why her own heart pulse was racing; why her face felt warm despite the biting cold.

“Natasha, I—” She broke off; took an audible breath. “I…” She started to lean in towards Natalia, and Natalia, as if there was some kind of magnetic pull between them, found herself mirroring the movement. Against all her instincts, all her training, her eyes started to drift closed. Her lips met Vera’s in the most featherlight of kisses and—

“Oh, there you are.” Natasha’s eyes flew wide open, she and Vera springing apart as if jolted by an electric shock. They whirled around to face the speaker. Madame Kazakova fixed them with an icy stare. “I was starting to wonder if you’d gotten lost.” She paused. Neither of them spoke. There was nothing they could say that would make this better, but plenty that could make it worse. Silence was the better option. “In any case, I’m afraid it’s time we went home.” In Natalia’s peripheral vision, she could see the familiar figures of some of the guards; their presence an unspoken threat. For one mad moment, she thought about making a scene, or perhaps grabbing Vera’s hand and making a break for it, but the urge died before it could even fully form.

What would be the point?

Wordlessly, she and Vera fell into step with Madame Kazakova. They didn’t look at each other. And yet, despite everything, despite the dread filling her veins with ice and the first stirrings of panic making her pulse echo like thunder in her ears, she couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss. And a small voice in the back of her mind wondered if, no matter how terrible the punishment awaiting her back in the Red Room, maybe… maybe this ill-fated outing really was worth it.

I really am an idiot.

“Knock knock,” Carol called out, sticking her head around the open door of Natasha’s office. “Are you— Holy shit!”

“Hello to you too,” Natasha croaked, mopping at her streaming nose with a sodden tissue as she tried to focus her bleary eyes on the screen in front of her.

Carol came further into the office, scrutinising Natasha within an inch of her life. “You look like crap,” she pronounced.

“Rude.”

For once, Carol didn’t smirk and shoot back some snappy retort. “Seriously, Nat. What are you doing here? You’re clearly sick as a dog. You should be at home in bed.”

“I don’t get sick,” Natasha said, but at Carol’s deeply sceptical look, she amended that too, “I rarely get sick.”

“Well, you’re clearly sick now. Humans don’t usually leak that much.” Without so much as a by your leave, she crossed the short distance between them and pressed a hand to Natasha’s forehead. For once, her touch didn’t feel as though she had a blast furnace beneath her skin. “And you’re burning up.”

“I’ll be fine by tomorrow,” Natasha muttered, scowling and pushing Carol’s hand away.

“Then go home until tomorrow.”

“I have a tonne of work to do.”

“Then it’ll have to wait. Anyway, don’t you have minions you can delegate to?”

“Not many. And they already have their own work to do.”

“Then you need more minions. Come on, Nat.” She held out a hand. “Up you get.”

“I can’t,” Natasha protested weakly, even though curling up beneath a mound of blankets pretty much sounded like heaven right now, especially when a sudden coughing fit racked her whole body. Her throat felt as though it had been scraped raw.

“Let me make this easier for you,” Carol said, once the coughing fit had subsided. “Come with me now, under your own steam, or I’ll pick you up and carry you.” She paused for a beat, fixing Natasha with an implacable stare. “And I’ll tell Rogers.”

Natasha glared back, even though her heart wasn’t quite in it. “That’s a low blow, Danvers.”

Carol shrugged, apparently completely unfazed. “Sometimes you have to fight dirty in order to win.”

“And you just have to win, huh?”

“You’re damn right I do.” Her expression softened. “Seriously, Nat, you don’t look well. And can you honestly tell me that your judgement is at its best right now? That you can’t be sure you won’t make mistakes?” Natasha wanted to say that even if she was suffering from the bubonic plague, that wouldn’t get in the way of her doing her job, but she couldn’t bring herself to actually form the words. Carol smiled gently. “Come on. Don’t be stubborn about this just because. It’s better for everyone — not least of all you — if you take some time to get back in fighting shape.”

“I can still fight,” she mumbled. Grudgingly, she added, “But I guess I could take the rest of the day off. If only because I’m not going to get any work done with your constant nagging.”

And there was the smirk. “You know it.”

Carol insisted on escorting Natasha back to her apartment — “Just to make sure you actually go” — but Natasha hadn’t been expecting her to accompany her inside.

“You really don’t have to look after me,” she said as Carol unceremoniously set about making her comfortable on the sofa. The protest was rather more half-hearted than she’d intended. She blamed it on her traitorous immune system.

“I know I don’t have to,” Carol said, arranging pillows and duvets and starting to make up a hot water bottle. “I want to.” There was a flicker of uncertainty on her face. “If that’s okay?”

Natasha had to admit that being fussed over by Carol wasn’t entirely unpleasant, and Carol did seem to want to do it… “Okay. Thank you.”

“Was that really so hard?”

“Like you’d be any different if you got sick.”

“Well, I don’t, so I guess we’ll never know.”

“I know,” Natasha grumbled into her duvet. “I bet you’d be a terrible patient. Worse than Fury.” Carol didn’t reply, although there were sounds of her moving around the… kitchen It sounded like she was opening cupboards. “What’re you…?” Completing the question seemed like too much effort all of a sudden, as did craning her neck to see what Carol was up to. Slowly, inexorably, Natasha’s sore and burning eyes drifted closed. I’ll just rest them for a moment, she thought drowsily. Just for a…

(The wind scoured her whole body, screaming in her ears and dragging tears from her eyes. But she was smiling as her death hurtled towards her. A soul for a soul: so be it.)

The world lurched around her, and Natasha couldn’t help crying out as she landed with a soft thump on the carpet.

“Are you okay?” came Carol’s concerned voice from somewhere behind her, and a moment later the woman herself appeared in Natasha’s field of vision, gently hovering above the ground.

“Fine,” Natasha mumbled, embarrassed. “The duvet cushioned my fall. Nothing hurt but my pride.” She must have rolled over in her… sleep? “I think I dreamt I was falling…” But the details were dissolving like fog before the sunrise, and soon they dwindled to nothing but a faint, paradoxical impression of peace. Weird, but can’t have been that important.

“That was probably because you rolled yourself off the couch,” Carol pointed out. “Here, let me help you up.” Before Natasha could protest — if she was even going to — she found herself scooped up and placed gently back on the couch. “And, since you’re not hurt, I won’t feel bad about laughing at your misfortune.”

“Hey!”

“Like you’d do any different.”

Natasha was about to protest her innocence, but found herself distracted by the most delicious aroma. “What is that?” Her stomach decided to join in the conversation, rumbling loudly, and she resisted the urge to glare at the treacherous organ.

“Chicken soup,” Carol said. “My nana’s recipe. It’s good for what ails you. It’s also pretty damn tasty, if I do say so myself.”

Natasha stared at her for a moment, at a loss for words. “You didn’t have to make me soup,” she managed.

Carol rolled her eyes. “You see anyone holding a gun to my head? Just let me look after you, okay? Someone has to, and it ain’t gonna be you.” Natasha drew breath to protest the slander, but Carol’s brows drew together in a small frown. “Unless I’m overstepping, in which case feel free to tell me to shove off. I’m told there are these things called boundaries?”

Maybe it was the nonchalant tone, maybe it was Carol’s exaggeratedly confused expression, or the way she shrugged her shoulders and spread her hands in a ‘who knows?’ gesture. Whatever prompted it, Natasha suddenly found herself laughing helplessly. “Y— You,” she managed to gasp out between giggles. “You—“

“You okay there, Nat? Need me to pat you on the back or something?”

“I’m l— laughing, not… not choking.” With a concerted effort of will, and a ridiculous hiccup or two, Natasha managed to stop laughing. Her head was pounding, and her throat felt as though she’d been swallowing sandpaper, but she felt… pretty damn good for being in such a miserable physical condition. I… think I’m a little loopy right now, she thought. “I think I’m a little loopy,” she heard herself say.

“That’ll be the fever,” Carol said. “Or maybe the hunger. Bet you haven’t been eating much lately.”

“I’ve been eating.” She winced internally at the guilt in her voice. “I just haven’t been all that hungry recently.” Nope, wrong way. Distract, deflect, divert. “But I’m hungry now. And that soup smells really, really good.”

“Coming right up!” Carol turned on her heel and hurried off to the kitchen. A moment later, she called out, “So does this mean you want me to stick around?”

“I guess,” Natasha drawled, drawing out the second word. “I mean, you’re here now and everything, and you’ve probably made more use of my kitchen than I have in all the time I’ve been here. So, yeah. Stay.”

Carol stuck her head out of the doorway. She was, of course, smirking. “Well, since you ask so nicely…” Natasha rolled her eyes, but Carol’s smirk only broadened. “You just sit there and try not to fall off the couch again. I’ll be right out.” She ducked back into the kitchen again.

Natasha settled back on the couch, a smile on her face and some kind of soft, warm feeling gathering inside her chest. It was like a blanket on a cold day, a hearty meal when she was hungry. Like…

Her eyes started to fall closed again, her thoughts drifting like leaves in slow water. A memory floated to the surface: her fingers entwined with another’s; the featherlight press of soft lips against hers.

She shot bolt upright, her eyes flying wide open. No! she thought, part horrified, part… something else that she didn’t have brainpower to think about right now. What am I, a fucking child? This wasn’t possible. It wasn’t practical. It isn’t happening.

Carol could never know. This, what they had together, it was good. Natasha didn’t want anything more, and even if she did — which she emphatically did not — Carol certainly didn’t. So why risk losing a good thing over what was undoubtedly just some passing hormonal… messiness? No, there was only one viable course of action here. Fortunately, it was one with which she’d had a great deal of experience: lock it in a box and forget about it. If she did that for long enough, it would go away on its own. Problem solved.

And Carol never has to know.

“Did I tell you to stop?” Anatoly snapped, and Natalia had to smother a flinch.

“No, sir,” she said, her voice clipped and flat. “But if we continue, there’s a risk of permanent damage.”

Across from her, Vera shook her head once, jerkily, but Natalia wasn’t sure if it was a signal, or if she was just trying to clear her head. She was listing badly to one side, weaving unsteadily on her feet, but still standing, despite everything. That last sent a flare of pride through Natalia, even as she winced inside at the cuts and bruises marking Vera’s skin, at the blood dripping from her nose. Not that the fight had been one-sided — Natalia’s side felt as though it was on fire, and she thought that at least one of her ribs might actually have been broken, or at least cracked.

“Understood. Continue.”

“But—”

Vera lunged for her, cutting off her stupid, futile protest, and instinct sent her hand snapping out. She deflected the attack and continued on, turning the momentum into an attack of her own. There was a vicious exchange of blows — Stop! cried a voice at the back of her mind, but her body kept moving regardless — and then it was over.

“Enough.”

Hiding her relief, Natalia straightened as much as she could, resisting the urge to press one of her bruised and swollen hands against her side; holding in a wince as a pulled muscle twinged. Vera was sprawled on the ground, her breath rasping hoarsely in her lungs. Natalia doubted she would be able to stand without assistance.

I’m sorry, Verochka, she thought, misery and guilt clawing at her insides. I’m so sorry.

Some time later — maybe a day, maybe two; between the exhaustion and everything else, time had become fluid and strange, slipping through her fingers when she tried to pin it down — she managed to snatch an opportunity to whisper that in person. Her heart broke at the way Vera flinched away from her.

“I’m so sorry,” she said again, helplessly.

“It’s okay, Natasha,” Vera rasped. “It would have been worse if you’d refused.”

It wasn’t okay. Nothing about any of this was okay. The fact that Vera was likely right about what would have happened if they’d added further disobedience to their list of crimes didn’t do a damn thing to ease the sick, sinking feeling in her stomach, or the way that guilt pricked her like a thousand needles.

At least it wouldn’t have been me.

The door swung open just before Natalia’s hand grasped the handle, and she jerked to a halt at the sight of Vera. Vera’s hair was still wet from the shower; her hand was frozen in the act of rubbing at her head with a towel, her eyes briefly wide and almost panicked before she smoothed her expression to blankness.

“Excuse me,” she said politely.

Nausea burned in Natalia’s stomach, her heart thudding painfully in her chest; the urge to flee warring with the desire — lessened, but not gone completely, despite her best efforts — to reach out. She yielded to neither, carefully forcing herself to reveal no outward signs of her inner turmoil.

“Of course,” she replied, just as politely, stepping aside.

Vera didn’t so much as glance her way as she strode past. Natalia flicked her own gaze around the room — it was better than seeing the way Vera’s shoulders were hunched with tension — noting that Olena was watching the pair of them as she made her bed.

Tale-telling bitch. But there were no tales here for her to tell; nor would there be. Not again. Not ever again.

Once the doorway was clear, Natasha headed into the bathroom to begin her morning ablutions. Like Vera, she didn’t look back.

“Where do you see yourself in five years?” Carol’s words were deadpan, but a quick glance in her direction confirmed that she was wearing her usual lopsided smirk, her eyes glittering like she knew a secret. It was a good look on her. Natasha put on a thoughtful expression, then abruptly snagged a pillow and threw it directly at Carol’s head. Carol snatched it out of the air, her smirk widening. “Thanks. I needed another one.” She added it to the truly ridiculous hoard she’d piled up on the couch behind her, making a production of settling back against them. Somehow, her bare feet made their way onto Natasha’s lap.

The television burbled quietly to itself, unheeded. “I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the goblin city…”

Natasha raised an eyebrow at the (not entirely unexpected, nor at all unwelcome) imposition, but elected not to comment. Instead, she shook her head and said, “That’s a—“ She broke off as a sudden wave of déjà vu crashed through her, knocking her off-balance. Instinct whispered to suppress the signs of her sudden disquiet, but she consciously overrode them to let the frown settle onto her face. Even now, years after making the choice to be more… open, she— But that thought was also familiar. “We’ve done this before,” she murmured.

Carol sat up, plastering a mock-offended look on her face. “Are you accusing me of being repetitive?”

“No, but…” Trailing off, she looked around the room, unease prickling over her skin, but finding no concrete reason for her disquiet, opted to simply ignore it. “Never mind. Maybe I’m just tired.”

“Maybe that means you should stop running yourself so ragged.”

Natasha snorted, picking up on of Carol’s feet and rubbing her thumbs in slow circles on the sole, gratified by Carol’s happy sigh. “I think that’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

“And I think you’re evading the question.”

“There are better questions.”

“Maybe, but that’s the one I’m asking. So: Natasha Romanoff, where do you see yourself in five years?”

The wind howled in Natasha’s ears, whipping her short hair around and plucking at her clothes. She gritted her teeth against it and tried to huddle even tighter into Carol’s body, thankful for the goggles protecting her eyes.

“Please ensure that you stow your tray tables and return your seat backs to an upright position,” Carol singsonged, her lips practically brushing Natasha’s ear. “This bird is coming in for a landing.”

Thank the nonexistent gods for that, Natasha couldn’t help thinking. Being briefly hurled or carried through the air by Steve or the Hulk was one thing, but shooting through the skies like a rocket was a whole different ballgame. She risked a glance downwards and promptly wished she hadn’t as she saw the ground hurtling towards them. Her stomach lurched uncomfortably and she pressed her lips tightly together to make sure any embarrassing whimpering noises stayed safely trapped behind them.

The ground loomed closer, and Natasha couldn’t help squeezing her eyes tightly shut, tensing against the expected bone-jarring impact… only to find herself turned in Carol’s strong arms and set ever so gently down on her feet.

“Thank you for flying Air Danvers,” Carol drawled behind her. “I hope you enjoyed the experience.”

Natasha opened her eyes, fighting the urge to drop to her knees and clutch at the ground as she turned on wobbly legs to arch an eyebrow at Carol. “It was… adequate,” she said. “I have to dock some points for the lack of in-flight entertainment, though.”

Carol gave her a lopsided smirk. “Okay. I’ll serenade you on our way back.” She fished a baseball cap out of the inside of her leather jacket; raking a hand through her wind-blown hair before settling it on her head.

Natasha gave an exaggerated sigh, stowing her goggles in a pocket and combing her fingers through her own hair in an attempt to look a little less like she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. “Why do I have the feeling I’m going to regret this?”

“Dunno, but that sounds like a you problem. Anyway, shall we get moving? I, for one, cannot wait to stuff my face with hotdogs and cotton candy and then go ride the tilt-a-whirl.” She set off walking, deliberately bumping Natasha with her elbow as she brushed past her. Natasha rolled her eyes and fell in beside her.

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Natasha murmured, as they reached the edge of the weed-choked field and stepped out onto a poorly-maintained road. “I need to go over Anderson’s report, and there are a bunch of requisitions that I have to review. Plus, I need—“

“To take a break before you burn out,” Carol interrupted smoothly. “The Avengers aren’t going to fall apart because the great Natasha Romanoff took a night off. Don’t get me wrong, you’re awesome and all that, but you’re only one woman. And it wouldn’t hurt for you to learn how to delegate once in a while. You picked your underlings for a reason, right? Or don’t you trust your hiring skills?”

“I delegate,” Natasha protested weakly, making a conscious effort not to keep the guilt from her voice.

“Uhuh.” That single word practically dripped with scepticism.

“I do! But there are still things I need to deal with personally.”

“Back when I was testing experimental aircraft, you know what we called vital components that didn’t have a back up?”

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

“Single point of failure.” She paused for a moment, perhaps for emphasis. “What happens if you get taken out of commission? Does the whole kit and caboodle come tumbling down?”

“Of course it doesn’t,” Natasha sniffed, bristling at the implication. “But—“

“Then you don’t need to micromanage every little detail. And you can afford to step away once in a while.”

“Says the woman who spends most of her time flying all over the known universe to deal with emergencies.”

“Don’t change the subject.” Natasha drew breath to protest, but Carol didn’t give her the chance to speak. “Anyway, I’m on downtime right now, and unlike someone not a million miles away from here, I didn’t need to be dragged off kicking and screaming.”

“I wasn’t kicking and screaming!” Natasha knew she was falling right into Carol’s trap, but somehow she didn’t mind, especially when Carol smiled, her eyes glinting mischievously.

“No, you just sulked a lot. Kinda like you’re doing now, actually.”

Natasha lifted her chin, looking Carol dead in the eyes. “I do not sulk,” she proclaimed with great dignity.

“Sure you do. Luckily, you’re cute when you pout. Like a kitten with its fur all ruffled.”

Natasha almost choked. “I see you like to live dangerously, Ms Danvers.”

“Well, duh.” Carol pointed to herself. “Experimental test pilot? Kree Star Force operative? Intergalactic superhero? A taste for danger kinda goes with the territory.” She flashed a lopsided smile. “Guess that’s one of the reasons I enjoy your company so much, Ms Romanoff.” Her tone was teasing, but there was a note of sincerity there that made Natasha check her witty retort, instead studying Carol’s expression. While she hesitated, Carol looped an arm through hers, quickening her pace so that Natasha had to break into a half jog to keep up. “Come on! I didn’t fly all this way to waste my time staring at fields. Move your ass, Nat!”

Natasha rolled her eyes, but forbore to complain. Besides, walking along arm in arm with Carol like this wasn’t exactly… unpleasant. Far from it, in fact. She could feel the warmth of Carol’s body against her arm, even through the layers of clothing between them. A sidelong glance showed that Carol was gazing straight ahead, her eager expression making her seem younger, somehow. Apropos of nothing, a memory flashed through Natasha’s mind: walking arm in arm; sneaking a sidelong glance to see a similar look of excitement and anticipation on her companion’s face. A similar pang of some nameless feeling darting through her chest like an arrow.

Smothering that feeling with the ease of long practice, she followed the direction of Carol’s gaze to a smear of light on the horizon, below the sinking sun. Snatches of music floated on the breeze, a faint sweet scent winding through the heavier green and earthen smells as she inhaled. They could have landed closer to their destination, but why draw attention they didn’t have to? Not that either of them really had a secret identity any more, but without obvious clues — like glowing, or flying, or bench-pressing a truck — people were surprisingly slow to connect the flannel and jeans clad Carol with the superhero Captain Marvel. And as for Natasha, well, she’d always been good at blending in with a crowd.

They walked in companionable silence for a few minutes, the bright smear growing closer and resolving into countless tiny points of light. The music was now joined by the low susurrus of a crowd, punctuated by laughter and screams. The traces of sweetness carried on the air had deepened, mingling with sweat and diesel fumes and a melange of cooking smells.

Carol’s grip tightened suddenly on Natasha’s arm. Concerned, Natasha studied her expression, noting the tension around her eyes and mouth. Options flickered through her mind one after the other until she fixed on something that felt right.

“You said you used to come here when you were younger.”

It took a moment for Carol to answer, and when she did speak, her voice was a little hoarser than usual. “That’s right. Every single year from about as long as I can remember up until I blew this popsicle stand and never looked back.”

“Never?”

Natasha felt, rather than heard, Carol’s sigh; deduced it from the way her body shifted against Natasha’s. Without meaning to, she found herself lightly resting her free hand on Carol’s arm for a moment in a wordless gesture of sympathy.

“Stopped by a couple of times. Once after I got my wings, once after I got my memories back and once after…” She trailed off with a shrug, leaving Natasha to complete that sentence for herself. It wasn’t hard. “There’s nothing here for me any more; hasn’t been for a long time. But I always used to love the Fall Fair. So when I saw they were still holding it this year, even after everything that’s happened, I thought I’d show a little home town pride.” The silence stretched between them like saltwater taffy, but Natasha waited Carol out, certain that she had more to say. Sure enough, a few breaths later, she added. “I guess all that flying all over the known universe can make a girl want to spend some time with her feet on the ground.”

“Who are you and what have you done with that speed freak Carol Danvers?” Natasha asked in a deadpan tone, judging that the time had come to lift the mood.

“Oh, she’s still here, and she’s gonna kick your ass seven ways from Sunday on the go-kart track.”

“Is that right?”

“You bet your ass that’s right. Higher, further, faster, baby.”

There was a shit-eating grin on her face, because of course there was. Natasha flashed a grin of her own; a little too wide and showing a few too many teeth.

“Challenge accepted.”

Despite herself, Natasha slowed to a halt as they crested a small rise and saw the fair spread out before them. There were people everywhere. They clustered around booths, queued for rides, ate food of all kinds — some of which likely only narrowly qualified as such — and generally just acted like… people. After almost two years of encountering barely more than a handful of people in any given day, a crowd this size, this dense, this… this joyful seemed almost obscene. It hit her the slap of ice-water against her skin, driving the breath from her lungs and making her heart thud painfully against her ribcage. Her chest felt painfully tight, like a vice had clamped around her body, and she struggled to reclaim her stolen breath. The world spun giddily around her and she clawed desperately for the tattered rags of her composure, but her mask was nowhere to be found.

‘Too soft,’ hissed the hard voice in the back of her mind that she’d never quite managed to forget. ‘Too weak. You disappoint me, Natalia. I thought you were stronger than this.’

Any other time, that voice would’ve snapped her out of her fugue; driven her to action just to spite it, but her gaze and her mind were fixed on the thronging crowd before her and she couldn’t… she couldn’t…

“It’s okay,” Carol murmured, slipping her arm from Natasha’s to gently rub her back. “You’re okay, Natasha. I know it’s a lot, but you’ll be fine. Just give it a minute.”

If there had been even the barest trace of pity in her voice, Natasha might have whirled on her, lashing out with every weapon at her disposal; physical and verbal. But there was just a matter-of-fact kind of understanding. Like she knew just how it felt. It was… It helped. It gave Natasha solid ground beneath her feet; the space she needed to catch her breath and pull herself together again. She took a deep breath, and then another one, reminding herself that she controlled her body, not the other way around. She couldn’t quite bring herself to meet Carol’s eyes, so she kept looking straight ahead.

“I know that many of the survivors have been concentrating their populations,” she said quietly. “I know there are even some places where you wouldn’t even know that anything had happened.” At least, if you didn’t notice how haunted everyone looked; didn’t see the grief and guilt shadowing even the brightest smiles. “But it’s one thing to know that and another to” —she gestured vaguely at the fair— “to see it.” She managed to scrape up a smile. “I spend most of my time in the Avengers compound these days. More than five people in the same place at the same time starts to feel like a crowd.”

She’s half-expecting Carol to make another crack about her needing to get out more. Instead, Carol stays quiet for a moment, her hand stilling on Natasha’s back. She doesn’t pull away — Natasha can feel the heat of that touch through her clothing — but there’s nothing stopping Natasha from stepping forward and breaking the contact between them. She doesn’t. She doesn’t let herself think about why that might be.

When Carol eventually speaks, her voice is serious. “A couple of months after it happened, I went to check in on a planet called, well, the natives called it Earth in their own language, but its official designation was Feiron Three. Anyway, the reason I went to check in on them was because their comms had gone completely silent. Not a peep for weeks. I touched down in their capital and” —she drew in an audible breath; let it out again— “the place was jam packed with people. There was barely space for me to land, there were so many of them. After rattling around in half-empty arcologies and cities, it was kind of a shock to the system. And it wasn’t just the number of people, it was the… the sound.The energy.” She huffed out a breath. “Even where people had started to congregate again, they were still kinda subdued, you know? Not really in a celebrating kind of mood.”

“I know,” Natasha murmured, when Carol seemed to need a response. “It was the same here at first. Still is, in many places. It’s understandable.” How could they celebrate when so many had been lost? How could they possibly take joy in their survival when it came at the cost of people they… cared for?

“Yeah.” A moment’s pause, and then Carol continued. “But here, it was like party central. Everyone had their glad rags on, and they were singing, dancing and cooking up a storm. It was crazy. And I… I couldn’t handle it.”

“What happened?”

“I took off again.” Natasha could hear the smile in her voice as she drawled, “So, hey, at least that puts you one up on me. You didn’t run for the hills.”

“Are there even any real hills around here?” Natasha quipped, because Carol seemed to need the humour. And, okay, maybe Natasha did too, a little. “I thought this whole county was flat as a pancake.”

“There are hills,” Carol said defensively.

“Uhuh.”

“There are!” Natasha turned — only briefly regretting the loss of the light, warm pressure of Carol’s hand on her back — to see amused indignation flashing in Carol’s eyes. She started to muster up a smile, only to realise that one already curved her lips. “Anyway,” Carol continued sternly, “Leaving aside the fact that it totally does have hills, so there, my point was that you don’t have to feel bad. If someone as totally radical as me can be rocked back on my heels, what chance does a mere mortal have?”

Natasha laughed. “I see you have a well-developed ego.”

“Kinda had to,” Carol said matter-of-factly. “If I didn’t, I might have given up when everyone and their dog kept telling me to quit.” The stark honesty of her response made Natasha have to hide a wince. Before she could find a suitably pithy response, though, Carol tilted her head thoughtfully and added, “Well, almost everyone. And not their cats. Although I suppose Goose wasn’t technically a cat, not really. Anyway, you good to go, or do you need another minute?”

“I’m good.” They started walking again, but before they got more than a few steps, Natasha decided to ask the question that had been plucking at her curiosity. “So, what happened with the people on Feiron? Did you ever find out why they were partying?” Different cultures did deal with grief in different ways, she supposed. Some kind of mass wake, perhaps? A celebration of the people they’d lost?

“Yeah.” The flatness of the word made Natasha regret the question, almost, but before she could say anything Carol was already continuing. “I sat in orbit for a minute to get my head together and then went back down. Took me a while to find anyone who’d actually talk to me without trying to drag me into the festivities, but I eventually got an answer.” Her face had taken on a pinched look. “Turned out the dominant religion had a prophecy about the end times. And when half their population just turned to dust…” She didn’t finish the sentence, but then she didn’t need to. “The party was a celebration of their people: all their accomplishments, all their triumphs. Everything that made them who they were. One last hurrah before the survivors went into… I think they called it the Long Night.”

The grim lines around her mouth and eyes told a story. Natasha was silent for a moment, unsure whether or not she wanted to have that story confirmed, but in the end she asked, softly, “Did they?”

“Yeah. Not… Not all of them. But enough.” She shook her head. “Too damn many.”

“Bozhe moi,” Natasha muttered. She didn’t often revert to her native tongue, but somehow no other exclamation or epithet seemed to carry enough weight for this. She knew it happened, of course; saw it in the secondary fatality statistics she made herself pore over every month. But a whole world? Or, at least, a significant part of it. Barely a blip in the grand scheme of things — no pun intended — and yet… “Bozhe moi,” she said again, helplessly.

“I don’t think God had a damn thing to do with it. Any of it.”

“You speak Russian?” Natasha was startled enough to ask.

“A little. Mostly curse words, and how to order drinks.”

“You’ve got your priorities straight, I see.”

“Only thing about me that is,” Carol retorted, a ghost of her usual smirk hovering over her lips at Natasha’s quirked eyebrow. “What, wasn’t that in my file?”

“It was not,” Natasha replied. She wasn’t entirely surprised, and it wasn’t like it mattered, but nevertheless there was a feeling, like moths fluttering beneath her ribcage, and she couldn’t quite—

“Alright, enough of being melancholy. I promised you a good time, and I like to think I’m a woman of my word.” She dialled her smirk back up to its usual level to add, “Which is why I’m going to smoke you on the go-kart track.”

Natasha snorted. “Big words, Danvers. Let’s see if you can back it up.”

“Then let’s go.”

The sound of breaking glass snapped Natasha out of her daze. She looked from the scattered shards and slivers to her hand — the one that had hurled the glass to the ground — and back to the slivers, bewilderment briefly dimming the fires of her rage. This… wasn’t her. She didn’t do this. She didn’t lose control; didn’t let her temper get the best of her. She certainly didn’t commit purposeless acts of destruction. It was just…

Her hands curled into fists of their own accord, her breath rasping harshly in her throat.

There were many crimes of which Natalia Romanova could have been accused, but idealism wasn’t one of them, or so she’d thought. Until this moment, with fury turning her blood to fire in her veins, she hadn’t realised — hadn’t let herself realise, perhaps — how important it was to her that missions served a greater purpose. Helping oligarchs amass even greater fortunes while the country crumbled around them? That was not a greater purpose. And the more she looked, the more examples she found. The people who currently pulled the Red Room operatives’ strings weren’t serving any kind of greater good: they were serving themselves.

“To serve is an honour,” she murmured, the words hard and bitter-edged. They tasted rancid on her tongue. She felt her lips curl into a sneer; didn’t care enough to control her expression. Besides, there was no one here to see her: no handlers, no guards. No partners. She was one of the Red Room’s most trusted, most loyal operatives. It had been years since they’d felt the need to remind her that they still held her leash. Her face twisted again. “Fuck the Red Room.”

Even now, just thinking those words — let alone saying them aloud — sent a cold shiver down her spine. She ignored it, shoving her anger, her fear; every last one of her messy, complicated, useless feelings into little boxes and walling them away, leaving only cold calculation.

If I’m really going to do this, I need to do it right.

In the end, escaping the Red Room’s clutches turned out to be somewhat anticlimactic. After all those years of being told that nowhere was beyond their reach, that they had eyes everywhere, that there was nowhere she could run where they could not find her, it seemed that they had rather overestimated their capabilities. Or underestimated hers. Either way, after several months of barely staying in one place long enough to sleep, constantly looking over her shoulder for nonexistent pursuit, seeing danger around every corner, Natasha could finally, finally let herself believe that she’d succeeded. For the first time in her life, she was… free.

Whatever that means.

She finally came to rest in a small town in Honduras, working in a crappy little dive bar that paid her just enough to rent a crappy little apartment in a crappy little neighbourhood. She had, if not friends, then at least people who were friendly with her and whose company wasn’t a chore. There was a man whose flirtations she thought she might enjoy reciprocating (and a woman whose smile made her heart flutter in a way she refused to acknowledge, even now, far away from Mother Russia). There was a life here for her, if she wanted it.

And she was completely and utterly bored out of her mind.

The hay bales marking out the borders of the track whipped past at what felt like lightning speed. As low to the ground as Natasha was, they felt like the walls of a deep canyon; impassable. The roar of the engine was almost deafening, exhaust fumes stinging her nose and eyes. She briefly lifted one hand from the wheel to adjust her badly-fitting goggles — undoubtedly a safety violation, but she didn’t have time to care — and ignored the survival instincts screaming at her to hit the brakes, instead keeping up a light but steady pressure on the accelerator. A quick glance to the right showed that she still had her shadow; the other driver practically neck and neck, clearly angling to overtake her.

Oh no, you don’t, she thought grimly, yanking the wheel to the right to cut off her opponent’s vehicle. For a moment, it seemed as though the other driver was going to push ahead anyway and send them both spinning out. Natasha braced for impact, hoping her seatbelt was in better condition than her goggles, but at the last possible moment, the other driver swung out, dropping back again to sit squarely in her peripheral vision. Natasha barely had time to heave an aborted sigh of relief before a hairpin bend came into view, her wheels rapidly eating up the distance, giving her no time to think; no time to worry about what her opponent was going to do. Gritting her teeth, she gripped the steering wheel, unable to keep from hunching slightly in her seat.

Closer… closer… Now!

Gently pressing the brake pedal, she steered her go-kart into a tight turn, hugging the inside track as best as she could. For a brief, heart stopping moment, the vehicle teetered precariously, two wheels lifting up off the ground, but she shifted her weight and it landed with a thump. The impact sent a jolt all the way up her spine, but that didn’t matter. Only victory mattered. Exhaling, she came off the brake and floored the accelerator, her kart screaming out onto the straightaway.

Into the home stretch, now…

But just as she started to think that she might actually win this thing, she realised that the engine roar and screeching tyres wasn’t just coming from her own vehicle. The shadow in her peripheral vision loomed large, suddenly, and then Carol fucking Danvers was rocketing past her, lifting one hand in a mockery of a salute as she neatly peeled ahead to cross the finish line a hair’s breadth before Natasha.

And that was that.

“Congratulations,” Natasha drawled, as Carol held up the stuffed teddy bear and wad of tickets that had been her prize.

“Thanks!” Carol brilliant smile was brilliantly victorious, seeming to light up her whole face, lessening the pain and weariness that had lurked in her eyes since she’d spoken of Feiron Three. Suddenly, losing the race wasn’t such an annoyance. Even if Carol is going to be smug as shit about it. Case in point, the way she held out the teddy bear to Natasha. “Here. This is for you.”

“I already have my consolation prize.” Natasha held up her own, smaller wad of tickets, plus the Captain America bobblehead doll she’d picked out from from the ‘runners up’ selection. (She planned to display it prominently on her desk where Steve would see it the next time he came in to mother her. She was looking forward to his reaction.)

“Oh, this isn’t a consolation. This is a thank you.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “What for?”

“For a fun race. A couple of times, I really thought you might risk flipping us both just to stop me winning. Exciting!”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “You found that exciting? Compared to what you do for a living?”

“Didn’t you?”

Natasha opened her mouth to deny it — how could she possibly find a go-kart race exciting after taking control of a spacecraft in midair during an alien invasion? After interrogating a genocidal god? After fighting Thanos? And yet something made her hesitate and reconsider her answer.

“It wasn’t entirely boring, I suppose,” she admitted grudgingly.

Carol’s smile softened a little. “Sometimes it’s nice to have a little low-stakes risk.”

It was all Natasha could do not to flinch. “Yeah,” she agreed, her voice thicker than she would’ve liked. She took a breath and pulled herself together, plastering a mischievous smile on her face. “And I guess a little healthy competition adds to the fun.”

“That it does.”

The expression on Carol’s face was far too searching, too knowing, for Natasha’s liking, and so she upped the wattage on her smile and held out a hand. “Fine, then. I accept your tribute. Just know that I’m going to kick your ass on the shooting gallery.”

“Oh, we’ll see about that,” Carol murmured, handing over the bear.

“Indeed we will.”

The two of them strode determinedly into the crowd.

Natasha did, in fact, beat Carol at the shooting gallery, even though the sights were crooked, but Carol beat her at the test your strength machine. The ring toss, bottle game, cross bow shoot, balloon pop and rope ladder climb all ended up as draws. Between them, they amassed a sizeable collection of prizes, and Natasha talked one of the stallholders into giving them loot bags to carry them all.

“Nope, that was all natural,” Carol said, when Natasha laughingly accused her of cheating on the test your strength machine. “Here, hold this.” She handed Natasha her bag of prizes and stripped off her leather jacket, rolling up her shirtsleeves and flexing. “Check out these guns.”

Natasha’s breath hitched in her throat as she focused on Carol’s biceps, her pulse thudding in her ears. She felt flushed and overheated, and she had to stop herself from swallowing hard. She told herself she was being ridiculous — her body wasn’t supposed to make demands of her like this — but, try as she might, she couldn’t tear her gaze away.

A sudden chorus of wolf-whistles and cat-calls snapped her out of her stupid fugue, and she narrowed her eyes at the five drunk guys suddenly clustering around Carol.

“Sorry boys,” Carol drawled. “I’m not interested.” She sounded perfectly relaxed, but Natasha didn’t miss the sudden tension in her body, nor the way she shifted her weight slightly and flashed a quick, assessing gaze around her as they exhorted her to change her mind.

I guess some instincts never go away.

She cast about an assessing glance of her own, calculating probable outcomes. Sure, Carol — and Natasha, for that matter — wasn’t in any real danger from these entitled assholes, but if someone recognised them, it would be a whole thing, and they were supposed to be here to have a good time, dammit. Weighing up the options, weaved her way closer to Carol, putting a sway in her hips.

“Yeah, you’re not her type,” she said, pitching her voice a little higher than usual, and ending with a breathy giggle as she slid her arm around Carol’s waist. “Come on, babe. Let’s go on the Ferris wheel.”

“Sure thing, hon,” Carol drawled back after a moment, putting her own arm around Natasha’s shoulders. “See you around, fellas.”

The two of them strolled off into the crowd, followed after a moment by the predictable commentary. Fortunately, words were all that followed after them. Once Natasha had confirmed that — leading Carol on a winding route that went nowhere near the Ferris wheel — she brought them to a halt near a fortune teller’s booth.

“Sorry about that,” she murmured, giving Carol an apologetic smile. “I thought that was the easiest way of disentangling ourselves without kicking their asses.”

“What if I wanted to kick their asses?” Carol mock-pouted, rolling down her sleeves and putting her jacket back on.

“Hey, if that’s the kind of thing you’re into, I won’t judge. I just figured you wouldn’t want to get into a brawl here.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time, but yeah. Probably not a good idea.” She flashed a fierce smile. “That’s what bars are for.” Natasha laughed, even though uneasiness flickered inside her at the thoughtful look Carol was giving her; at the way she paused before saying, “Can I ask you something?”

No.

“Shoot.”

“I’m kinda surprised you went for that particular tactic.”

“Why do you say that?” she asked lightly, not sure she really wanted to know.

“I dunno.” Carol gave a careless shrug, but her words were anything but careless, her tone cautious. “You just seemed a little uncomfortable when I flirted with you. And you deflect like a motherfucker whenever anyone even vaguely hints at the possibility that you might be interested in women.”

“That’s not—“ Her first instinct is, in fact, to ‘deflect like a motherfucker’, but she deliberately cuts herself off and makes herself reconsider. “Why don’t we go get ourselves something that could charitably be called food? You’ve been complaining about wanting to stuff your face since before we got here.” She paused; deliberately met Carol’s gaze. “And then maybe we can find somewhere to sit and talk?”

Carol regarded her for what felt like a lifetime — it was barely a second or so — and then shrugged again. “You got it.” A sly smile curved her lips. “I did promise to take you to the ‘Deep Fried Anything on a Stick’ stall.”

“I can feel my arteries hardening already.”

Shouldering their bags of trophies, they set off once more into the crowd. The stall did, in fact, live up to its name. Against her better judgement, Natasha let Carol talk her into trying one or two of its dubious delights.

“Well?” Carol pressed, as she bit into a battered hot dog. “What do you think?”

Natasha gestured to her mouth, her jaw still working around the mouthful of batter and processed meat, and held up a finger in a ‘wait a minute’ gesture. Her first impression was one of doughy richness, like an unsweetened doughnut. It was okay, but nothing special. Certainly not worth the heart attack she was certain to be risking. But then she got to the meat; slightly smoky tasting and surprisingly tender, rather than the rubbery texture she’d been expecting. The combination — not quite savoury, not quite sweet, a little of both — was…

“Pretty good, actually,” she said once her mouth was once again unoccupied. “Although” —she prodded her teeth with her tongue, grimacing— “I could do without the layer of grease coating my mouth.”

“You get used to that,” Carol assured her, laughing at the sceptical look Natasha shot her. “Now try the chocolate bar.”

“Okay…” With a dubious glance at the stick held in her other hand, Natasha took a cautious bite. A moment later her eyes popped wide at the explosion of sweet, almost buttery richness that seemed to melt in her mouth. “Oh my God, that’s amazing.”

“I know, right? Totally worth an itty bitty increase in blood cholesterol.”

“Maybe,” Natasha admitted. “But I can never have this again. Not all of us have your metabolism.”

“Hey, don’t sell yourself short. Your metabolism’s pretty good, right? I mean, I thought the, uh…” She trailed off, guilt suddenly flickering in her eyes.

‘The Red Room was working on their own super-soldier shit,’ was undoubtedly what she was going to say, or words to that effect. Which almost certainly meant the guilt was about reading Natasha’s secrets.

“I’m no Steve, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said with a shrug. “And don’t worry about it. I’m the one that dumped all my secrets online for the whole world to see. I’m an open book now.”

Carol snorted. “I very much doubt that. But let’s find somewhere to sit.” A few moments later, they were ensconced on a pile of hay bales, out of the press of people. If she closed her eyes and ignored the sounds of the other fairgoers, Natasha could almost have believed the two of them were alone. Almost. Not that she actually closed her eyes, of course. You could never be too careful. “So,” Carol said, pulling off a piece of electric blue cotton candy from the bag in her lap. “You wanted to talk?”

“Want is a strong word,” Natasha murmured, wondering — not for the first time — what the fuck she was even doing. “But… yeah.”

“So?” Carol prompted, when she didn’t continue right away.

After considering a number of possible ways to start, Natasha opted for the beginning. “You know I grew up in Russia in the eighties.” It wasn’t quite a question, but Carol nodded in response. “Bet you’re not surprised to learn that it wasn’t exactly friendly to gender and sexual minorities.”

“About like this place in the seventies, I’d bet.”

“Not far off, yeah. Anyway, the place where I grew up, they… strongly disapproved of any kind of relationship between the girls. Friendship was bad enough, but if there was even a hint that it might be anything more than that…” She shrugged. “Let’s just say that they did their level best to discourage it from happening again.” Unless it was on their terms, for the sake of a mission. But that was a whole different can of worms, and not one she wanted to open with Carol right now.

Carol looked like she wanted to ask a question, but all she said was, “Sounds like that place sucked donkey balls. And so did the assholes in charge.”

Natasha surprised herself by laughing; the sound sharp-edged and bitter. “You’re not wrong there. But my point is that it’s left some… patterns of thought that are hard to break. Even after all this time.”

“I… get that. And I’m sorry if I’ve pushed your buttons in a bad way.” A quick, rueful grin. “I’ll try to remember not to flirt with you, but feel free to elbow me or whatever if I—“

“I didn’t say I minded,” Natasha interrupted. Her face felt hot, her stomach fluttering with something not a million miles away from nervousness, but she held Carol’s gaze and even managed a sultry smile. “And I didn’t say you should stop. Unless you want to, of course.”

Carol gave her a searching look, and then smirked broadly. “In that case: are you a parking ticket? Because you’ve got fine written all over you.”

Natasha groaned. “Seriously?”

“Hey, you’re pretty and I’m cute. Together we’d be Pretty Cute!”

“Are you trying to kill me?” She got up, brushing stray pieces of hay off her jeans.

“There must be something wrong with my eyes, because I can’t take them off you.”

“No more, I beg you.” Her words were undermined by the fact that her voice shook with laughter.

“I hate to see you go, but I love to see you walk away.” Laughing too hard to speak, Natasha turned to swat Carol on the arm. “Ow,” Carol deadpanned. “Now we see the violence inherent in the system.”

Natasha snorted. “Come on. For the sake of my sanity, I need to find something I can kick your ass at.”

The ‘something’ turned out to be the dime pitch, Natasha managing to neatly cover most of the targets painted on the board.

“That was awesome,” said the pimply teenage boy manning the stall as he handed over her prize. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone win this.”

“It’s not that hard,” she said, smiling.

Carol was staring at her. “How in the hell did you manage that?” she demanded as they strolled away. “The damn thing is clearly rigged.”

Natasha shrugged. “I have a lot of practice at throwing small metal discs with some degree of accuracy.”

“Yeah, that’d do it. So, that makes it a draw, right?”

“Yep.”

“Want to try to find something that’ll decide things once and for all?”

“No, I’m good.”

She was half-expecting Carol to protest, but the other woman surprised her by saying, “You know what? So am I. Now how about that tilt-a-whirl?”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Where do you see yourself in five years?”

“This is wrong,” Natasha murmured, the feeling of déjà vu enveloping her like a shroud; thick and stifling.

The television burbled quietly to itself; some kind of music. “Thus do I seek my love, on these sad shores where she died.”

Is that opera? Natasha wondered distantly, but that didn’t seem important right now. There was a feeling growing inside her, a feeling that something wasn’t right. She wondered if that something was her.

“Nat?” Carol sounded worried.

Natasha didn’t answer, instead rolling smoothly to her feet. Instinct guided her body into a ‘ready’ stance, weight on the balls of her feet; ready to move. She studied the room around her.

“What’s happening?”

The room seemed to warp and shift around her, wavering in and out of focus. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught glimpses of things that shouldn’t have been there. Her bed from the Red Room dormitory. The desk from her office in the Avenger’s compound. The corner of a Honduran dive bar.

What kind of game is this?

Who the fuck was messing with her head?

“Natasha!” Carol’s cry was so urgent, so desperate, that Natasha was already whirling around before she belatedly registered that her voice was coming from the wrong direction. There were… two of her? One was just getting up from the couch, giving her a concerned look.

“Uh, Nat? Getting a little bit of a manic vibe here. What’s up?”

The second Carol stood in the open doorway, except in place of a perfectly ordinary apartment door there was some large, intricately-carved metal slab. Light spilled from her as she strained to hold it open.

“Wake up, please. You have to wake up. I can open the door, but you have to step through on your own.”

At the back of her mind, she was running down a checklist. Shapeshifter, holograms, mind-affecting powers, hallucinations, this is a dream… But her thoughts felt as though they were wreathed in fog, blurred and out of focus. Before she could figure out a response, one of the Carols — her Carol; the one who’d been curled up on the sofa with her — reached out to put a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“Kinda getting worried here,” she said. “Talk to me, Nat. What’s wrong?”

Natasha drew a breath to explain… and then paused, puzzled. Shrugging, she gave Carol a sheepish grin. “Guess I must be tireder than I thought. Or maybe I’m getting sick again.”

“Are you trying to get me to play nurse again?” Carol joked, but the concern didn’t leave her eyes.

“How about playing doctor?” Natasha murmured, moving in close.

Carol made a show of considering it. “I could be persuaded.”

“Then I will have to be persuasive.” And she set about doing just that.

“So,” Carol said later, as they enjoyed the view from the top of the Ferris wheel. “I kinda feel like I owe you an apology.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I was kinda curious about you — and the Avengers generally — so I looked you up online. Found a whole bunch of interesting stuff. Maybe too much, honestly. But now I’ve gotten to know you a little, it sort of feels like prying. Like I went and snooped in your diary or something.”

Ah. She’d been wondering if Carol would bring that up. “Don’t worry about it,” she drawled. “Like I said, I put that out there. It would be pretty damn hypocritical of me to criticise someone for reading it.”

“That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t bother you, though. Or that it shouldn’t. So… I’m sorry.”

Despite herself, Natasha found the gesture oddly charming. “Apology accepted, but not necessary. Although, in the interests of full disclosure, I feel I should remind you that I read your SHIELD file.”

“Eh, I don’t care about that. There’s nothing in it that I mind you knowing.”

“I’m glad.” She felt as though it should have surprised her that she actually meant that, and yet it didn’t. “I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

The Ferris wheel started moving again. They didn’t speak again until they were once more on solid ground.

“If you read my file, you know I had an older brother,” Carol said. Her expression was unreadable.

“Yes,” Natasha said cautiously. “He died in a car accident, right?”

Carol nodded. “A drunk driver hit him. The other guy walked away with cuts and bruises, but Max was pronounced dead on scene.”

“I’m sorry.” Natasha reached out to rest her hand on Carol’s arm. Carol leaned into her touch.

“Thanks. It was a long time ago, but…” Carol sighed. “We used to come to the fair together, when I was little. Mom wasn’t around and Dad was always working, so a lot of the time it was just Max and me. He was an awesome big brother, and he was the only one who didn’t laugh at me when I told him I wanted to be a fighter pilot.”

“I’m glad you had someone like that in your life.”

Carol turned to her; gave her slightly sad smile. “Yeah, me too. I kinda wish you could’ve met him. I think the two of you would’ve liked each other.”

“I’m honoured you think that.” Casting around for something to lighten the mood, she added, “Of course, you realise I would’ve pestered him for embarrassing stories about you.”

“Ha! And he would definitely have obliged.” Carol looked as though she wanted to say something else, but then her eyes fell on something up ahead and her eyes lit up with glee. “Ooh, dodgems!”

“Whoah, we’re half way there. Whoah-oh, living on a prayer!”

True to her word, Carol was providing in-flight entertainment on their way back to the Avengers compound, gleefully singing her heart out as she soared through the skies, carrying Natasha bridal-style. She was actually, Natasha was forced to admit, not half bad, especially considering the circumstances. And, well, maybe it did help somewhat to take her mind off just how very high up they were. Difficult as it was to make her arms uncurl from around Carol’s neck — Natasha had already resigned herself to casting dignity to the wind in favour of self-preservation — when Carol reached the end of the song she applauded enthusiastically.

“I retract my earlier complaint,” she shouted. “A plus entertainment.”

“Why thank you. I knew all those years of karaoke would stand me in good stead.”

Melancholy shadowed her expression then, and Natasha had a shrewd idea why. “I’m sorry about Maria and Monica,” she murmured, repeating the words louder at Carol’s quizzical look.

“Yeah, me too.” Natasha felt Carol’s chest move against her as she sighed. “How fucked up is it that sometimes I’m almost thankful they both got dusted? Whichever one of them had survived, losing the other would have torn them apart.” Another sigh. “It is fucked up, I know.”

“I think it’s understandable,” Natasha replied, wishing she didn’t have to yell to be heard. “People want to spare their loved ones pain.”

Carol was quiet for a long moment — long enough that Natasha wondered if she hadn’t heard — but then she said, “Yeah, I guess. It’s still kinda fucked up, though.”

“Aren’t we all?”

There was no response to that, and a few moments later Carol started singing again, something about having a heart of glass. Clinging to her again, Natasha bowed her head, closing her eyes against a burning that she couldn’t pretend was due to the wind. In that moment, all of her guilt and grief weighed so heavily upon her that she was almost surprised it didn’t send them plummeting to the ground. It was too much; far too much for her to just lock away in a box and ignore, even if she’d wanted to. But she couldn’t breathe for the weight of it. During the time she’d spent at the fair with Carol, it receded just enough for her head to breach the surface, but now it came crashing back like a tidal wave and she was drowning in it. Distantly, she registered that they were landing, that Carol had set her down and was saying something.

“What was that?” she asked, keeping her voice level with an effort. Plastering a rueful grin on her face, she gestured to her ears with one hand as she pulled off her goggles with the other. “Maybe I should have worn ear plugs.

Carol drew back, pressing a hand to her chest as she shot Natasha a deeply offended look. “Are you maligning my singing?”

Natasha rolled her eyes, seizing on her words like a lifeline. “I meant because of the wind,” she said dryly. “Your singing was fine.”

Carol pouted. “Fine?”

“Fantastic. Amazing. Wonderful. Take your pick.” This was… nice. It was helping. The mingled grief and guilt was still there, but it receded a little, allowing her to breach the surface.

“Better.” But the look she gave Natasha was concerned, and the next thing she said was, “Are you okay?”

‘Fine,’ was what Natasha meant to say, but what came out instead was, “I don’t know.”

The words seemed to hang there between them like an unexploded bomb.

“Is there anything I can do?” Carol asked. Her tone was matter of fact, like it was really that simple.

Natasha found herself thinking, Maybe it is.

She took a step towards Carol, and then another one, a mischievous smile curving her lips. “You could stay,” she purred.

Carol blinked at her, and then smiled back, “Why Ms Romanoff, are you propositioning me?”

“Maybe. Why, are you interested?”

“I thought I made that clear with all the flirting.” Reaching out, she put her hands on Natasha’s shoulders, gently tugging  her half a step closer. “But are you sure? After what you said about the Red Room, I wasn’t certain—”

“Fuck the Red Room,” Natasha burst out without intending to, her voice low and vicious. Taking a breath, she made herself relax a little. “They don’t get to dictate how I live my life; not any more. I’m not going to feel guilty for wanting what I want.”

“And what do you want?”

“Can’t you guess?”

“I’ve never been big on guessing games. Why don’t you use your words?”

“Did anyone ever tell you that you can be infuriating sometimes?”

“So many people. You would not believe how many people.”

“No, I really think I would.” Part of her was asking what the hell she thought she was doing; was urging her to just play this off as some kind of joke or mind game. She ignored it. Instead, she did something that even now made her stomach flutter uneasily and sent a shiver down her spine: she told the absolute truth. “I want you, Carol. I don’t want to be alone tonight. I’m not looking for a relationship, but some no strings attached sex sounds pretty fucking fantastic right now. Pun absolutely intended. And I’d like it to be with you.”

Carol laughed. “Don’t be shy; tell me how you really feel.”

“Hey, you told me to use my words.”

“That I did.” She raised an eyebrow. “So, what, I’m just a convenient warm body?”

“Of course not.” Why was it so much harder to say this when she really meant it? “I like you and I find you attractive.” She shrugged. “It’s really not that complicated.”

Carol didn’t answer right away, and Natasha immediately started to second guess herself, but before she could properly start spiralling Carol leaned in and flashed her a brilliant, shit-eating grin. “Hey, Natasha.”

“Yes, Carol?”

“If I said you had a great body, would you hold it against me?”

Relief flooded Natasha as she groaned aloud. “That’s—” ‘terrible,’ she was going to say, but was cut off by Carol’s lips on hers, mouth as hot as the rest of her. She enthusiastically kissed Carol back, an answering heat igniting inside her. This dance wasn’t at all unfamiliar to her, but beginning it by choice, for no reason other than that she wanted to, was a heady kind of drug all of its own, seeming to heighten every little sensation. When they finally broke for air, she was panting a little. And, she noted with a thrill of satisfaction, so was Carol.

“For the record,” Carol murmured, her breath warm on Natasha’s tingling lips. “I like you too, and in case it wasn’t obvious, I find you hot as hell. Want to go have sex?”

“Let’s go and have sex.”

“Where’s Fury?”

Natasha whirled around at the unexpected voice, already reaching for a weapon. The woman — and how the hell did she get in without tripping a perimeter alarm — just stood there, looking like she could take whatever they could throw at her and emerge unscathed. She was wearing some kind of costume, or maybe a uniform, but it was nothing Natasha had ever seen before.

“He’s dead,” Steve said, because of course he did; the truth was still his go-to response even if it might have been better to keep hold of that information until they had an idea of who this woman was and what her intentions were. But she noted the details of the woman’s response — eyes widening, mouth falling open in what looked like genuine shock, her whole body stiffening — and conceded that maybe Rogers’ approach had some merit in this case.

“Dead?” The word was barely audible, like the intruder was trying it on for size, like she couldn’t quite believe it, and against her will Natasha found herself sympathising. But in the space between one heartbeat and the next, the woman stiffened her spine and clenched her jaw, her expression hardening. Despite herself, Natasha couldn’t help admiring her ability to pull herself together in the face of grief. “How?”

(The way she held her hands made Natasha think of Tony rather than Steve; blasts more than fisticuffs, maybe. Weapons in the gloves or bracers, or some kind of power? Natasha had already palmed one of her stings, but now she shifted position slightly so she more easily reach a flashbang if she needed to.)

“That’s a long story,” Natasha said; her tone deliberately clipped and professional. “Who are you?”

The woman’s eyes narrowed, and Natasha was almost certain she was going to demand their names first, but then she sighs. “Carol Danvers. Former US Air Force, former Kree Star Force.” Natasha lets her eyebrows lift slightly — that was an unusual résumé, and Carol surely knew it — and was rewarded by a tight smile. “Yeah, that’s a long story too.”

“I’ll bet,” Steve mutters. “I’m Steve and this is Natasha. We work—“ He broke off, and she didn’t need to look at his face to know his jaw had tighter around the word. When he continued, his voice was rough around the edges. “We worked for Fury. The last thing he did before he died was activate that device.” He gestured towards the pager.

Carol looked at it, and then back to them. She sighed. “I think we need to talk.”

“What do you want?”

Natasha raised her eyebrows. Out of all the questions Carol might have asked her, she hadn’t expected that one. Still, it was straightforward enough to answer. “That’s easy,” she said dryly. “I want for things to be stable, and for threats to stop popping up every five minutes.”

The sound of music came from the TV; some kind of opera by the sounds of it. “Oh, cruel memory; in the flower of her life. I want her back from you, tyrannous gods!”

Carol shook her head. “No, you’re thinking too big. Like, what do you want for you?”

“What do you mean?”

Rolling her eyes, Carol sat up a little on the couch, turning around so she could lean against Natasha instead of lounging on her mound of cushions. “I mean, what’s your happy ending? What does ‘happy ever after’ look like for Natasha Romanoff?”

“That’s… hmm.” Unbidden, a series of images flickered through her mind’s eye, one after another after another. A dark-haired girl with a crooked nose. A crowd of people looking to her like there was no red in her ledger. The laughter of children. The sensation of someone’s lips on hers. Laughing with friends. Stay, she heard herself say in her mind. I love you too. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what you want?” Carol said, teasingly.

Uncomfortable, Natasha twitched her shoulders in what felt like an awkward shrug. “Never really been a priority.”

Sadness flickered briefly in Carol’s eyes, but then she smiled, leaning in close enough that Natasha could feel her breath on her lips. “Then maybe I can help you figure it out.”

She was falling, and then she wasn’t.

Awareness filtered in gradually as Natasha slowly drifted up the depths of… slumber? That didn’t feel quite right, but she didn’t know how what else to call it. She’d certainly been…

(smiling as her death hurtled towards her)

…dreaming.

She was…

(made her choice and was at peace with it, but for one single note of regret)

…falling, and then she…

(like a blanket on a cold day, a hearty meal when she was hungry)

…wasn’t.

(“What do you want, Natasha?”)

Lassitude filled her body, her thoughts slow as molasses. It would be so easy just to let herself drift back into slumber; to sleep, perchance to dream. And yet…

(I wish)

…she couldn’t quite bring herself to let go.

There was something nagging at her; a feeling, or perhaps a memory.

(“Natasha! Can you hear me?”)

She felt a frown cross her face; the most awareness she’d had of her body since… waking up? There was definitely…

(a cry jolting her awake in a cold bed in Russia, a flame haired woman at a fair, a maddeningly familiar voice on a radio in Honduras; a woman standing in an impossible doorway)

…something.

Her frown deepening, she forced her eyes open despite their heaviness. The world around her was out of focus; flashes of light and colour seen through thick fog.

(a woman standing in an impossible doorway pleading with her to wake up)

She took a breath. It felt like her first since waking up, and as that thought crossed her mind, her heart lurched in her chest and she could feel her pulse pounding in her ears.

(Carol)

“Where am I?” she wondered aloud, her voice sounding hoarse and strange to her ears.

(Carol calling to her time and time again)

She was falling and then she wasn’t.

(I wish I’d had more time with her)

“Carol,” she breathed, testing the word on her tongue. It felt… right. It all came flooding back to her; the fall and what came after, and suddenly Carol was standing there in front of her, impossibly solid and real amidst an ocean of fog and shadows. Their gazes met, and it was like being hit by lightning; like every nerve ending was crackling with electricity.

“Natasha?” Carol said, seeming similarly jolted. “Are you awake?”

“I… think so.” She glanced around, more to give herself a moment to gather her thoughts than because she expected anything to have changed. (It hadn’t.) “I fell. I… I died.”

“Yeah.” Carol’s voice was sombre, and perhaps a little strained around the edges.

“Then how are you here?” Carol was here, was real; she’d never been more certain of anything in her life. Feeling a little ridiculous, even now, she asked, “Is this the afterlife?”

“An afterlife, I guess. You’re in the Soul Stone.”

“Oh, of course.” She could’ve kicked herself for not that sooner. Like Carol’s presence, she felt the truth of it down to her bones. If she even had bones. Another thought occurred to her. “So, how are you here?” A terrible thought struck her like a hammer blow. “Didn’t it work? Is Thanos still—”

“It worked,” Carol said swiftly. “Don’t worry. You… Yeah. It worked. As for what I’m doing here: isn’t it obvious?” She smirked, but it was a shadow of her usual cockiness, and the strain in her voice had grown worse. “I’m here to bust you out.”

“What?” Horror and happiness warred within her. “You can’t! A soul for a soul: that was the price.”

Carol smiled, but it was a grim smile. “Let’s just say I’ve… reopened negotiations.”

“I won’t let someone else take my place!” Natasha blurted out, horror gaining the upper hand. “Especially not you. I made my choice. You can’t—“

“Hold your horses, Nat. No one’s taking your place. I got a little… creative, is all.” Of course you did. Natasha drew breath to ask what she meant, but Carol held out a hand, cutting her off before she could speak. “Look, I’d love to regale you with tales of the whole epic quest deal, but we’re kind of on the clock, here. I can open the door, but you have to choose to step through.” She grimaced. “Otherwise, I would’ve already picked you up skedaddled on out of here. And the clock is ticking.”

“I have to step through the door?” If she squinted, she could kind of see the faint, flickering outline of a doorway around Carol. As she focused on it, the image solidified, going from an outline sketched in the fog to a solid object. “That’s it?” As soon as she said the words, her mind was assailed with a sea of images. Snapshots of her life, but also her life as it could have been; as it could yet be. Her body felt light suddenly, almost like she could drift away on the breeze. She swayed on her feet, her thoughts suddenly slow as molasses. “Wha’?” She managed barely managed to force the word fragment out through her suddenly numb lips, but she persevered. “What’s… happening?”

“You have to want to leave,” Carol said softly. “And it gives you reasons to want to stay.”

“A— are they…? Is it real?” The door was translucent and ghostly now, but Carol was still as real as ever, although she seemed to have receded a little.

“What does real even mean in this context?” Carol blew out a frustrated-sounding breath. “I don’t know, Nat. Things get fucky with Infinity Stones. Real, not real, who the fuck knows?”

“A happy ending,” Natasha whispered to herself. A life where there never was red in her ledger? A life where no one ever taught her to be ashamed of who she was? A life where she was always a person, first and foremost, rather than a weapon? What would that even look like? She could feel the Soul Stone trying to show her, and it would be so easy to just…

let…

“Nat, please.” The pain in Carol’s voice pierced the fog like a ray of light. “I need you!”

Natasha somehow found the strength of will to draw in a breath, open her eyes and focus. Her gaze met Carol’s — she was closer now — and once again she felt that crackle of electricity. “You… need me?”

Carol’s muscles strained as she pushed against the now fully visible door, struggling to keep it from closing. “Maybe it’s selfish of me,” she said, panting, “but I miss you so much. And… And I want to see what kind of a life we can build together.” Her breath hissed through her teeth. “Dammit Nat, I love you!”

And, just like that, everything snapped into crystal clarity.

“I love you too.” There was a fluttering sensation in her chest, like the wings of a thousand moths, and for a moment she wavered. For a moment, she listened to the whispers at the back of her mind and wondered if it would be wiser to accept what they offered. But only for a moment. With a smirk that would’ve put Carol to shame, she drawled, “So, what do you say we blow this popsicle stand?”

She reached out and took Carol’s hand.

Carol laughed, high-pitched and breathless with relief. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Together, they stepped through the door.