Nat
It was a common misconception in the intelligence community, even among the ranks of SHIELD, that the Black Widow didn’t know how to love. That she was just a cold-hearted killer with no emotions except for satisfaction at completing a mission. Natasha Romanov certainly didn’t have a cold-heart, and she had experienced many types of love in her life.
She barely remembered her life before the Red Room, but she knows with certainty that Natalia Romanova had been loved at one point in her life. It was there in the red hair she remembers falling in a curtain from a smiling face above her. It was the faint lullabies she could barely pull from the darkest corners of her mind.
Natalie Sherman had known love too. Maybe not from the people pretending to be her parents, but from Helen, her younger sister, she knew unconditional love and adoration. And she loved Helen, Yelena, unconditionally in return. She learned how to be a sister in Ohio and she never stopped wanting to be that again.
To Natasha Romanoff, the love of a parent and the love of a sibling are familiar. Sure, now she remembers the parents, and now she has more siblings, but she’s still had that love before. Romantic love, though, she’s only felt that for one person. Her Masha.
Maria, who had instantly backed her older brother when he vouched for Natasha’s innocence. Maria, who was Natasha’s first friend. Masha, who loved so deeply, even when she couldn’t show it in public. It was there in the way that she made sure Natasha always had her favorite drink, hot cocoa, waiting on her desk on cold days. It was there in Maria getting a second desk chair in her office, so Natasha could work alongside her when the glares and stares from other SHIELD agents got to be too much. It was there in the way Masha called her “Talia” in private, in that sweet way she did. Masha, who shared her family, her parents, her brother, her sisters, with Natasha so freely. And, most of all, it was the way that Masha had been by her side when Natasha took down the Red Room, when she had to learn Yelena all over again, when Alexei was sent back to jail, screaming at his ‘daughters’ the whole way.
They had been dating for almost three years, and Nat knew that Maria would never propose to her. Not because she didn’t want to but because Maria knew Nat got nervous when she wasn’t in control of the course of her life. Natasha wanted to pull out all the stops for her Masha, wanted to make the proposal the most memorable that it could be. But she knew Maria wasn’t like that. Maria was a private person, her love language was acts of service, which were always thoughtful, but never showy. She hated drawing what she called ‘unwarranted attention’, meaning any attention outside of what she needed to as a high-ranking SHIELD agent. No, Maria would hate a big, showy proposal.
Instead, Natasha proposed privately, in her and Masha’s apartment. They had been watching a rom-com together, one of their guilty pleasures. They always sat on their well loved couch, each wrapped in their own blanket (because they were both blanket hogs), laughing at and making fun of the predictable plots. Natasha had purposely picked one she knew had a proposal scene in it, and when the on-screen proposal happened, so did their real one. Masha had laughed so hard, and Natasha’s heart had soared at the thought that she had caused that sound.
Maria’s family had been so happy. Her parents had both known that it was going to happen, because Natasha had asked for their blessing. They had given it enthusiastically. Maria’s siblings had been just as thrilled. Clint had laughed about being even more outnumbered by sisters, to which all four of them jumped on him and pummeled him with pillows. As Natasha sat in the living room of her fiance’s parents’ house, surrounded by most of the people that she loved and that loved her in return, she thought about how many minds would be blown if they could see her now, and she laughed.