a prologue
Sometimes, in the dead of night, Natasha Romanoff would dream.
It began so long ago that she doesn't even remember where or how, but for years, Natasha dreamed.
Natasha thinks this came from what Melina told her the day before she lost any hope at having a real life; a broken whisper from her dying almost-mother to “never let them take your heart.”
Her first dreams were of a life outside of the Red Room's clutches. A life with her blonde-hair and bushy-tailed little sister and pets roaming throughout their home. Yelena loved pets, always asking Melina and Alexei for a puppy but to no avail. Natasha thinks in her dreams she would fill the house with pets.
Her distant dreams involved thoughts of a one-day nuclear family like the ones she envied - this time real and not fleeting. She’d have a husband and kids in that life. There would be a swingset in the backyard and real presents under the Christmas tree and an abundance of love for years to come.
Those dreams died with the removal of her uterus and ovaries and the cold and hard assurance that the life of warmth and love and family wasn’t one that she ever would be able to achieve. So, she stopped dreaming.
But in the middle of 2004, thanks to a slightly annoying archer named Clint Barton, she was free of the Red Room’s grasp and given a second chance at this life. Slowly, she began dreaming again. She slowly saw what her new life could look like, re-learned that blood had little to do with love and that maybe she could reap happiness from this life in a new way.
And when she did, her dreams were void of her long-betrayed little sister (who Natasha insisted was living a better life so long as Natasha wasn't involved) and instead involved visiting Clint's family with a cat that came with her wherever she went.
Knowing now that she didn’t have to get married to a man to live a full life made the need lessen for one entirely, and so two years into her time with SHIELD, Natasha promised herself over a cup of hazelnut coffee that she’d get a cat someday.
Natasha found out maybe five years later that she didn’t need a man at all from Tony Stark.
They had been drinking at a party that he was throwing maybe a month before the Battle of New York. He had finally sat down after bouncing around all night and was enjoying something like his fifth drink.
“Were you actually flirting with me the night of my brithday?” he had asked with that stupid-cocky-Tony look on his face, “Because I was and still am off limits, Romanoff.”
Natasha had snorted, picking apart the peanut that she intends on snacking on, “I don’t think I’ve ever flirted for real, so, no. I hope that doesn’t bruise your ego, Stark.”
Tony had tilted his head, the drunk smirk still on his face as he squinted a little at her, and somehow ignored her last comment, “You’ve never been interested in anyone enough to flirt with them?”
“Not outside of a mission, no,” Natasha had just shrugged. Men weren’t all that interesting, she’d known that for a while. Her only priority in the last five years has to maybe settle down and adopt a cat.
“No one? Do you even have a type?” Tony then asked, “Beard? No beard? Skinny? Muscles? I have connections, I could help you…”
Natasha had laughed at the sincerity that crept in to his tone, “Guys aren’t all that interesting to me. It’s okay, gives me a lot of time to work.”
“No women, either?” Tony had asked next.
Any thoughts in her brain skidded immediately to a stop at that question, confused. What does he mean, no women? She put down the peanut and stared at him.
“I’m a woman,” she’d retorted dumbly, trying to mask her surprise over the question.
“C’mon, Romanoff, you never heard of lesbians?” Tony leaned back a little more in his chair, “Women that love other women? It’s possible! Just like guys that like other guys. I mean… I’m happy with Pepper now, but… back before I met her? I wasn’t exactly acting all straight.”
Blunt confessions from Tony aside, Natasha couldn’t help but be a little shocked. She could be with a woman? Men could be with other men? It somehow opened her world up tenfold.
From then on, from the birth of the Avengers to the fall of SHIELD, Natasha found herself putting a wife in her dream. A cat, a wife, and now with the fact that having children didn't depend on her lack of uterus, a little baby wormed its way back into her dreams.
Something felt wrong, though, and when like the Red Room, SHIELD was evil, too, Natasha stopped dreaming once again.
It's been all too obvious that she's the problem, anyway. It's not like the world is going to turn and start granting her wishes when she's still so clearly on the wrong side. There’s something wrong with her and she’d been letting the worlds of dreaming and reality blend far too much recently.
So she dissolved herself in the Avengers, taking missions and going out drinking with Steve (who she strongly considered her antithesis - he's just always so good and Natasha's, well, at her core, Natalia. Always has been, always will be).
And then it all changed in the shipyard with the red wiggly-wooed witch.
Her past life came back to haunt her right as she thought she was nudging her way back on to a better path.
What came next is what she thinks most would define “spinning out” as; trying to put meaning into a relationship that would never work, trying to fit herself into the box that she thought made the most sense, the one where the monsters stay on their side and the normal people live their normal lives. None of it helped because even in the comfort of her best friend’s home that she deludedly sometimes considered to be hers as well, she couldn’t close her eyes without seeing her wretched Red Room instructor and couldn’t sit in silence without hearing the cries of her fellow widows. She’s living her nightmares all over again.
That's all until she's reunited with the Avengers in a rapidly ascending country and her eyes land on the most gorgeous brunette she has ever seen wearing her red leather jacket.
This time, with her mind as uncontrolled as its ever been, the dreams whirl through her mind without her permission as the twins inhabit the compound. All she can see as she sleeps and all she can think about as she wakes is the woman with her red leather jacket. It’s pathetic - especially seeing as they only ever had one half-exchange.
(It went a little like this; Natasha saw the woman in her jacket, she made a comment to Steve about said jacket, the woman looked away with red cheeks, and Steve ignored Natasha’s comment completely like the drill sergeant he is, and she never got an answer as to how that jacket ended up in the witch’s custody.)
The woman - Wanda Maximoff - plants herself firmly in Natasha's dreams with the cat and the baby and a newly-implemented apartment that smells like fresh-baked cookies, all without Natasha’s permission. It makes Natasha feel like she’s going crazy but it’s nothing like what things were like with Bruce. This time it’s almost euphoric and Natasha feels like an idiot for wanting to chase that high.
This reins true as, over the summer, the team (which, these days consists of Steve, herself, Wanda, Pietro, Sam, Rhodey, and sometimes the sentient toaster) develop traditions. They start having bonfires a couple of times a week, sometimes even hosting their entire dinner around the fire in the form of hot dogs and burgers and desserts of s’mores. Steve affectionately refers to it as bonding, but Natasha’s pretty sure it’s some kind of torture to be so close to Wanda and still not know how to talk to her. Also, the smoke burns her eyes.
However, one stupid hot August night, Wanda's bright green eyes finally meet Natasha's for the first time since the Battle of Sokovia.
Normally, Natasha sits between Steve and the cooler of drinks with the next person over at least six feet away. This night, though, she spent too long in the shower and her golden seat was taken by Sam, leaving the spot next to Wanda open.
After noting that she’s going to kick Sam’s ass the next time they have hand-to-hand combat, Natasha begrudgingly takes her drink and sits down next to Wanda.
Pietro, her too-energetic and overprotective twin brother, was on her other side as always. It put Natasha on edge, admittedly.
Being so close to Wanda and watching her every once in a while was like an out of body experience. She and Pietro had this language that only twin siblings have, tag-teaming telling stories of their childhood and of their early-teenage years with Pietro telling most of the story and Wanda butting in to fix his details. The smile on her face as this all happened was something Natasha never wanted to see go, and Natasha noticed also that Wanda refused beer whenever it was offered, instead opting for Sprite.
Even in the hot night, she’d get cold easily and had a blanket around her shoulders but refuse to put on a hoodie in this weather. She affectionately called her brother a moron and batted at his arm when he called her his younger sister. It was some kind of eighth wonder of the world that such a sweet and loving human came out of Hydra’s grasp.
Natasha decided then and there that this love wasn't something that she deserved to dream about. This woman was light and love and everything Natasha wished she could've turned out to be and she thinks that she can't ever think of being a part of her life and accidentally tainting it like she does everything else.
But when bright green eyes meet Natasha’s, Natasha realizes that she doesn’t ever have to worry about Wanda changing because of her because Wanda’s eyes aren’t on her. They’re on the android behind her, and the look on her face seems solely reserved for him.
She stops dreaming once again, this time vowing to never dream again.
They're not real for a reason, and entertaining them at this point is just deluded thinking. And Natasha Romanoff is forever undeserving of them.
(She knows this to be true especially when she breaks her once-friends out of prison not a year later and just makes the promise again.)