Memories
Maria finds her girlfriend sitting on the floor, surrounded by old, dusty boxes and countless of what appears to be pictures. Natasha hadn’t noticed her yet, so she takes advantage of that by silently leaning against the door and watching the redhead smile at an old picture. Maria leans in in an attempt to find out which picture exactly, causing Natasha to notice movement from the corner of her eye.
in one swift movement, a gun is drawn from the belt around her hips, pulled off the safety switch with a familiar, clicking noise. Natasha loosens her grip on the firearm when she notices who it is, however. the ex-spy takes a deep breath and lowers the gun. “goddamnit, woman. you’ll get yourself killed one day if you keep that up.”
Natasha returns to sorting the pictures, and Maria joins her on the floor. one picture in particular catches her eye. the quality is poor, but it’s recognizable enough. she smiles. the picture shows a 5-year old Maria, face covered in chocolate sauce, smiling at the camera with sparkling eyes. she hands the picture to Natasha, who throws her head in her neck and laughs. “this one we’re keeping.”
the next picture shows Maria, four years old, proudly showing a swimming certificate to the camera with a bright smile. Natasha grins. “you learned to swim?” she asks.
“yeah.” Maria answers, but the smile on her face disappears quickly when she realized Natasha has never had any of those moments almost every child experiences in their life. those moments you feel like you can take on the whole world. the redhead notices her girlfriend’s mood change and gently grabs her chin. “hey. look at me. don’t do that.”
Maria nods and picks up another photo. they spend the rest of the afternoon laughing at Maria’s old childhood pictures. at the end of the day, their apartment is a sort of museum of framed pictures. sometimes, they would spend whole days lying snuggled up on the couch, staring at those pictures. none of them bothers to remove them, not even after the snap, because Natasha likes to keep these kind of memories close to her.