a stupid proposition
A month later, Natasha’s sitting in the team’s newest-found safehouse with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and a warm mug of coffee in her hands.
It’s almost shockingly domestic for a criminal such as herself, but living with boys for the past ten years has taught her to cherish the quiet moments for herself.
Steve and Sam picked her up from the farm yesterday for a mission in Romania, but they have a week until they have to do it, which is how they found themselves in this safehouse.
What she doesn’t expect right now - it’s six in the morning and the sun is still struggling to come above the trees - is for the lock of their house to jiggle a second and then open.
Two people come in - two people that she has not wanted to see and haven’t seen in three months - Wanda and Pietro Maximoff.
Pietro’s bundled up with a coat and hat that covers almost all of his hair. His scarf curls under his chin and he’s very obviously growing a beard again.
Wanda’s behind him, much less cozied up but with her hair in a ponytail and looking oh-so-cozy in a maroon hoodie that Natasha kind of recognizes.
“What are you doing here?” Pietro asks, knitting his eyebrows together as he drops his bag on the table, “Here to put us in jail again?”
“Pietro, not the time,” Wanda interjects with a heavy sigh. She looks exhausted as her eyes flicker around the room, obviously taking in her surroundings. Her eyes meet Natasha’s and Natasha has to hold back from melting, “How many rooms are there?”
“Three,” Natasha says quietly, not holding eye contact any longer than she has to, “I didn’t know you guys were coming, I can move my stuff so you have a bed.”
“It’s the least you can do,” Pietro snips, shedding his jacket and coat before walking into the kitchen.
Natasha doesn’t even bother to meet eyes with him and instead places her coffee mug down on the table, promising herself to return to it as she stands. She lays the blanket on the back of the couch before going down the hall to her room.
She barely unpacked last night, only taking out a fresh set of clothing and switching the pillowcase. She dumps her yesterday clothes into a plastic bag labeled laundry and shimmies the pillowcase off, trying not to let her thoughts get too far away from her.
God, she wishes Steve told her the twins were coming. She could’ve made some excuse up and stayed with Yelena and Melina (and Alexei, too, but thankfully he spends a lot of time not at the house).
“You don’t have to do this right now.”
Natasha’s heart drops to her stomach, but thanks to her training she’s able to keep the reaction only internal and just looks over her shoulder to the woman speaking.
“It’s fine,” Natasha puts the old pillowcase on, “You guys need sleep, anyway.”
“And you don’t?” Wanda asks, giving her a look, “You look like shit.”
Natasha rolls her eyes, packing the rest of her things into her bag and slinging it over her shoulder, “Take the room. I’ve slept on worse than that couch and I’m sure Pietro can tell you all about how this is the least that I can do.”
Wanda sighs, “Natasha, he’s just holding a grudge. It’ll let up, I promise. He did the same thing against me when I convinced him to join Strucker’s program, but he eventually came around.”
Natasha shakes her head, not wanting to argue with her. She just nods at Wanda’s hair, “You should dye your hair. It wouldn’t take much for someone to recognize you with your hair looking like that. It’s nearly identical to your photos.”
Clearly, Wanda wasn’t expecting that, and she goes silent with enough time for Natasha to leave the room, so she does.
Natasha leaves her bag by the couch, wanting to just return to her coffee while the twins sleep and live in her unbothered little bubble for another hour until Steve wakes up.
She can’t do that, though, because Pietro’s glaring at her from his spot in the kitchen and there’s no way to feel comfortable under his gaze and knowing what she inadvertently did to him and his sister. Who, at the moment, is walking back into the room.
“Pietro, prestaň,” she hisses, walking into the kitchen and smacking the back of her brother’s head. (Stop it.)
He mutters something to her that Natasha doesn’t hear, but she decides it’s not worth it, anyway. She just sits on the couch and wraps the blanket back around her shoulders and holds the slightly cooler than before coffee mug in her hands.
When she looks up again, Pietro’s raising his voice at Wanda who’s leaving the kitchen and walking toward the living room, saying, “Ona je v prvom rade dôvod, prečo sme v tomto neporiadku, Wanda! Nie je dôvod s ňou sympatizovať a neviem, prečo trváš na tom, aby sme to urobili!”
It takes Natasha some time to decipher it, but from what she understands, he’s asking about why Wanda’s sympathetic towards her.
To be fair, Natasha’s found herself wondering the same thing.
Wanda whips back around towards her brother and Natasha can tell how angry she is now by the red glowing around her fingers, “I did the same fucking thing, Pietro! So just shut the fuck up!”
“Woah!” Steve walks out of his room, clearly still exhausted but far more attentive to whatever’s going on in here, “What are you two yelling about?”
“It’s nothing,” Wanda says softly, “Sorry for waking you up, Steve.”
Pietro’s still angrily silent in the other room, and Natasha can practically feel the frustration rolling off of him.
Steve looks at the three of them, clearly making some kind of assessment. He sighs, fixing his sleep-rumpled shirt, “Stop fighting. You all need sleep and everyone’s jet lagged.”
“I’m not jet lagged,” Pietro retorts under his breath.
Steve glares at him, “Cool it, Maximoff. You’re only here because you insisted you come with Wanda.”
Pietro shuts up and Wanda sits down on the empty side of the couch. Natasha feels her whole body tense, but hopes that Wanda just didn’t notice and instead focuses on her coffee.
Steve leaves the room and Pietro eventually disappears into the bedroom, mumbling something under his breath as he goes that makes Wanda throw a tiny energy ball at him.
He stops dead in his tracks, glares at his sister, and then continues walking, this time audibly mumbling, “That was rude” under his breath.
“Does the TV work?” Wanda asks, her voice low and accented and making Natasha feel far too many things for someone who’s supposed to be marble.
“It should,” Natasha responds softly despite herself, taking a sip of her coffee and settling against the couch. She tucks her cold feet under her knees, half-wondering why it’s so cold. She ignores it, she’s dealt with far worse cold and it’s not much worse than making the tip of her nose cold.
Wanda reaches for the remote and turns the TV on silently. Natasha watches the channels go by. First there’s a group of news channels, all speaking Romanian that’s almost too fast for Natasha to catch on to, then there’s a bunch of random shows that she doesn’t recognize, and then a couple of cooking channels.
“Жаль, что я не взял свои бокс-сеты,” Wanda murmurs, still flipping through channels. (Too bad I didn’t bring my box sets)
Natasha’s almost startled by Wanda’s Russian, even though she knows that the twins speak the language. It’s not surprising with Sokovia’s proximity to Russia, but for some reason, in this moment, Natasha’s been caught off guard.
She doesn’t like the feeling, but she doesn’t say anything.
Wanda eventually settles on one of the cooking channels, watching intently until it cuts to commercial and turning to Natasha, “Do I really have to dye my hair?”
Natasha takes a second longer to respond than she should (she was fully panicking about Wanda just talking to her as if they’re friends when it’s been made so clear that they barely are). She finishes the coffee she’s drinking before nodding, “I mean, there are a lot of white brunettes in the world, but it doesn’t hurt to be cautious.”
“It’s just…” Wanda sighs, “Pietro’s been dying his hair for years. It’s a shock that it’s been able to hold on for so long.”
Natasha shrugs, “Well, when you do it wrong…”
Wanda laughs lightly, “Your hair turned out nice. Could you show me?”
It’s like Wanda’s opening a door for Natasha to walk through with the other side holding some kind of tangible friendship. It’s what Yelena has been telling her to go for for weeks now. Pietro’s scowl still lingers in the back of her mind, but seeing Wanda looking at her with that little smile on her face makes her want to charge through the door and see what’s on the other side.
She tugs her blanket a little tighter around her shoulders, “You have to pick a color first.”
Wanda’s grin only grows, “I’ve always thought that red could suit me.”
Natasha thanks whatever’s out there that she learned to control how she appears to other people, because if she were a normal person, she would’ve choked right then and there.
Instead, she nods, “Sam and I are going into town today, I’ll pick some dye up.”
-
True to her word, Natasha goes into town to get some hair dye for Wanda and a couple of other odds and ends with Sam later that afternoon.
Normally, she’d run errands with Steve, but since the Accords and being on the run, they decided that going around together posed as too much of a risk. And it’s cool because she likes Sam. He’s a breath of fresh air in this hellhole that she’s recently found herself in.
“We need to get some booze,” he comments as they enter the store. “I miss American alcohol.”
“That’s insane,” Natasha comments as she leads them down an aisle for hair dye and grabs a couple of boxes of bleach, “We should look for games while we’re in town. There’s going to be too much downtime to not play something.”
“I like that idea,” Sam says, watching intently as Natasha looks at all of the hair dyes, “Whatcha looking for?”
“Wanda wants to dye her hair red,” Natasha responds, grabbing the one she likes and slipping it into her basket, “Let’s get food here and we’ll hit a different store for entertainment-type things.”
“Shouldn’t we just get in and out?” Sam asks as they stroll over to the breakfast section and Natasha grabs a couple of boxes of cereal, “God, this selection sucks.”
“Mm, makes you miss home, huh?” Natasha asks, “Anyway, you’re not that recognizable-”
“Hey!” Sam squawks, offended.
Natasha ignores him, “And you screamed when you saw me with the dyed hair for the first time. As long as we keep our heads down, we’re going to be okay.”
“To be fair, it looked like someone blitzed off your eyebrows,” Sam retorts, grabbing a couple of protein bars before they head into the baking aisle.
“What is it with the eyebrows?” Natasha asks, grabbing a boxed cake mix and putting it in the cart, “They cannot be that bad.”
“Nat, I love you,” Sam pats her shoulder, “but they’re awful. And why are you buying cake mix?”
“I don’t need your judgement,” Natasha retorts, leading them down the aisle to get some other things and putting them in the cart, “We only have a couple more things to get from here.”
Sam sighs, but doesn’t say anything until they get to the aisle with eggs and milk and other various refrigerated products.
“Y’know, since Red showed up, you’ve been in a good mood,” Sam comments.
(Red was a nickname he assigned Wanda after seeing her powers for the first name. Wanda, for god knows what reason, has actually indulged it.)
Natasha gives him a pointed look, “You’re an idiot.”
“I am not!” Sam exclaims, following her with the cart back to the front of the store so that they can check out. “I’m just saying, you two get along. Go with it, you could use some friends.”
“I have friends,” Natasha retorts, offended. She has plenty of friends. And her (albeit estranged) family.
“Uh huh,” Sam mocks, earning a slap to the shoulder as they get into line.
After leaving the grocery store and loading up the car, Natasha drives the two of them to the store around the corner. It’s a convenience-type store with an entertainment section. Natasha grabs a deck of cards and Sam walks off to get something while Natasha finds herself in the movie bin.
There’s all types of movies in there, and even a few box sets.
Natasha’s pleasantly surprised when she sees a marked-down box set of How I Met Your Mother from seasons 1-5. She can’t help but think that Wanda would probably like it and when she sees the characters on the front of the box, she’s confused as to why one of the women looks so much like the former Deputy Director of SHIELD, Maria Hill.
She brushes it off and grabs the box and the cards and goes to the front, quickly paying the man behind the counter and then heading back to the car to wait for Sam.
He comes out a couple of minutes later bearing a Monopoly game and something else that Natasha can’t see, but once they’re loaded into the car, they head back off to the safehouse in a comfortable silence only accompanied by the quiet music on the radio.
When they get back to the safehouse, they find that Pietro and Steve have moved all of the furniture out of the way so that they could spar.
Wanda’s sitting in the kitchen, watching the boys until Sam and Natasha come in and immediately offers to help them put things away.
Natasha takes the help, there’s no reason to not at this point, but she keeps a careful eye on the living room where the boys are still sparring.
“They haven’t broken anything yet,” Wanda comments, and Natasha hums. It’s hard to believe, honestly.
She moves on, though, “Let’s dye your hair.”
Wanda pouts and Natasha has to ignore the flurryin her stomach when that happens, “Can it wait? I like my hair.”
“I liked my hair, too, but it’s a defining feature, ved’ma,” she brushes past the nickname, hoping Wanda ignores how it just fell out of her mouth so casually, “and unless you wanna be caught, we need to do it.”
Wanda huffs, putting away the cake mix before following Natasha to the bag of hair products.
“You still want red?” Natasha asks, pulling the red hair dye out of the box, “or do you want to be blonde like yours truly?”
“I don’t know if I could pull off blonde like you can,” Wanda responds, and even though Natasha’s a trained spy with the ability to pick up on even the smallest of emotions, something about the way Wanda is throws her off and she can’t tell if she’s being flirted with or not. (She’s 90% sure that she is, but she really doesn’t want to believe it.)
“I’m sure you’d be okay,” Natasha replies smoothly, not wanting the other woman to figure anything out. She knows Wanda could technically just go into her head (even though she’s sworn up and down that she knows how to not and hasn’t), but she’d rather the woman just doesn’t find out. She’s with Vision, anyway.
“Mm, I’m still going with the red,” Wanda says, taking the box that’s on the table and reading the side of it.
“Well, you have to be blonde before you can be red, anyway,” Natasha says, opening the box of hair bleach and reading the instructions. “Is your hair washed?”
“I washed it right before we left to come here,” Wanda says, “I can wash it again if it needs to be fresh.”
Natasha shrugs, “I’ve worked with worse. How about we bring the TV in here so we can watch something while we do this?”
“There’s nothing good to watch,” Wanda whines, flinching when there’s a louder than normal thump from the living room.
“What is wrong with you three?” Natasha asks, looking into the living room to see Pietro pinned under Sam with Steve standing off to the side, “Jesus, I should’ve just stayed in Russia.”
“You’d miss us too much,” Sam says, jumping up from where he was and walking over to Natasha, “Where have you been all this time, anyway?”
“I just said that I was in Russia,” Natasha responds, brushing off him saying do you know how big Russia is and turning her attention back to Wanda, “I found a box set when we were at the store, maybe we could watch that?”
Wanda looks surprised, but goes to the bag that Natasha was previously rifling through and pulls it out, “Oh, I wanted to watch this show! It was on my list before all the…” she trails off, not wanting to address the elephant in the room.
Natasha’s glad that she doesn’t, especially when she feels Pietro’s eyes on her, and instead just nods, “Good thing we have a DVD player, then! We’ll dye your hair and watch the show.”
They don’t end up moving the TV into the kitchen and instead just take out Natasha’s laptop that she got off of Mason that has a DVD slot.
Wanda’s incredibly patient throughout the entire process, and they spend half of the show talking about the different characters - Natasha points out that the woman on the cover, Robin, looks like Maria and Wanda swoons over Lily and Marshall’s relationship. They both agree on Barney being a pig and have a hard time liking Ted, but they get more invested the more that the show goes on and before long, they’re eight episodes in and snacking on chips while they wait for Wanda’s hair to process.
Before the night’s over, Wanda’s once-dark brown hair is now a decent blonde and Natasha promises to dye it red tomorrow.
The real issue falls on the fact that there are three rooms and five humans.
Natasha offers to sleep on the couch so long as the boys put it back where it’s supposed to be, and while Pietro seems on board with that decision, the other three aren’t.
“Guys, I’ve slept on worse,” she says, like she told Wanda this morning. She really doesn’t mind sleeping on couches and any sleep sounds good right now.
“See, she said she’s okay with it,” Pietro grumbles, earning a slap to his arm.
“Don’t be a dick,” Wanda retorts, “Who’s willing to double up?”
“Wanda,” Natasha meets the other woman’s eyes, “I’m fine. Promise.”
“No,” Wanda responds, more upset than she probably should be at this situation, “we kicked you out of your room this morning and I feel bad. Why not have Sam and Pietro share and we’ll share? Those two have slept together before anyway.”
Natasha feels her stomach squirm with butterflies at that suggestion and quickly needs the attention off of herself. She whips her head in the boys’ direction, “You two have slept together?”
“No!” the two exclaim, “Absolutely not!”
“We’ve slept in the same bed before,” Sam clarifies, “Wanda was out of town and Steve was doing some shit and the only hotel we could get only had one bed.”
“Now that’s straight out of a romcom,” Natasha responds, smirking and ignoring the pit in her stomach at knowing probably what the witch was doing. If she wasn’t with Pietro, she was probably with Vision. And she’s pretty sure that that classifies as a good reason as to why sleeping in the same bed is a bad idea.
“It is not, we had a pillow barrier!” Pietro retorts, somehow angry sounding even when saying the words pillow barrier.
“Can you two share or not?” Steve asks, clearly exhausted, “Because I don’t mind sharing, but the room I’m in has a twin and I don’t know how comfortable that would be.”
“I don’t see why we’re doing all of this when Natasha’s fine sleeping on the couch…” Pietro interjects, an angry eye still on Natasha.
God, how is this week going to work when he’s still in such a mood?
Wanda says something in rapid Sokovian at him and then he shuts up, “Sam and I can share.”
“Okay,” Sam nods, “Now we can all go to bed, thank god.”
Natasha nods, but she doesn’t feel so appreciative.
Wanda disappears after not much longer to shower and the boys go to their rooms to sleep and Natasha stays out in the living room, trying to distract herself from what’s to come.
Also, Yelena calls.
“Je ne comprends pas pourquoi elle a dû faire ça. Je lui ai dit que j'étais bien avec le canapé, Lena,” Natasha whines, pacing back and forth between the kitchen and the living room. (I just don't understand why she had to do that. I told her I was good with the couch, Lena.)
“Pauvre Natasha, doit dormir au lit avec la fille qu'elle aime,” Yelena retorts. (Poor Natasha, has to sleep in bed with the girl she likes.)
“T'es un con,” Natasha snips, frustrated. She didn’t ask to be in this situation. “Que fais-je?” (You’re an ass. What do I do?)
“Tu le suces,” Yelena responds, unbothered, “Et vous dormez votre humeur. C'est tellement ennuyeux.” (You suck it up. And you sleep your mood off. It’s so annoying.)
“Ou, écoutez-moi, je pourrais juste... dormir sur le canapé,” Natasha suggests, “Si j'attends assez longtemps, elle ne s'en apercevra même pas.” (Or, hear me out, I could just… sleep on the couch. If I wait long enough, she won’t even notice.)
Yelena scoffs on the other end, “Oh mon dieu, tu es cinq? Développer une paire. Et va dormir, tu m'énerves.” (Oh my god, are you five? Grow a pair. And go to sleep, you're annoying me.)
Natasha pouts, leaning against the doorway between the living room and kitchen and catching Wanda’s eyes when the woman comes out of the bathroom. She’s in a t-shirt and PJ pants and there’s a towel on her head but somehow she still is the most beautiful human that Natasha’s ever seen.
God, she’s pathetic.
It’s over in a blink and Wanda disappears into their room and Natasha focuses back on her conversation, “You called me.”
“О, теперь английский?” Yelena asks, and Natasha rolls her eyes. (Oh, English now?)
“Ты сука,” Natasha snips, and Yelena laughs loudly on the other end.
“Okay, goodnight,” Yelena concedes, “Take a shot if you have to, but go to sleep. Stop making yourself insane over this.”
“Okay,” Natasha nods, taking a deep breath and diverting the conversation from herself, “How’s everything with the widows going?”
She and Yelena talk for a little while longer before Yelena lets her go - something about helping Melina - and Natasha’s left alone once again.
She stands still for a long while, processing everything about today and finally feeling the exhaustion from today settling into her bones. Maybe Yelena’s right and she really does have to just suck it up because a bed sounds really nice right now.
Natasha finally moves, walking past the couch and grabbing her blanket and bag, and then walking into the bedroom.
Wanda’s sitting on the bed with her legs crossed and a book in her lap. One of her fingers hangs on the corner of the page as if she’s about to turn it and her hair is now semi-dry and pulled into a loose bun.
She looks up at Natasha when the blonde walks in, “Hi.”
“Hey,” Natasha manages a small smile, unable to ignore the fact that any exhaustion she previously had is now gone and all she has now is an uncomfortably high heart rate.
Jesus, she can’t help but curse at herself. She’s supposed to be The Black Widow. Black Widows don’t get nervous or fluttery with crushes. They’re marble.
Wanda smirks a little, “I didn’t know you spoke French.”
“I speak twelve languages,” Natasha responds, tilting her head a little, “Including but not limited to English, Russian, French, Spanish, Latin…”
“Show-off,” Wanda mutters, the smile not leaving her face, “I only speak three. And my English sometimes is shit.”
“You do pretty well,” Natasha responds, half-conscious of the fact that she’s still awkwardly standing in the doorway, “Are you going to bed soon?”
“Yeah,” Wanda nods, dogearing the page that she’s on, “You?”
Natasha nods, “I’ve been up for like, twenty hours. I think that if I sleep now I’ll never wake up.”
Wanda snorts, “I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
Natasha bites her lip, placing her blanket down on the bed and her bag at the foot of it, “I’m going to…” she pulls a pair of sleep-shorts and a t-shirt out of her bag, “go change. I’ll be back.”
Something about this entire situation is so uncomfortable. It’s weird because she spent the evening with Wanda and they got along fine. They’re getting along fine now. But sleeping in the same bed feels like a weird line that she shouldn’t cross.
It puts an even weirder taste in her mouth as she changes in the bathroom and sees the scar on the back of her shoulder in the mirror. It’s light, barely visible unless you’re looking for it, and came from one of her hits. She cringes as she realizes that she had less of an issue with having sex with a literal murderer than falling asleep next to a woman that she mostly trusts.
There must be something deeply wrong with her, right? Normal people don’t do this.
She pulls on her shirt anyway, one that she bought when she went out with Yelena and has a random band on it. She runs a hand through her too-short too-light hair and tries to remind herself that this isn’t a big deal.
It doesn’t help that all she wants to do right now is call Clint. Clint would know what to say, he knows her better than anyone. But she can’t because she’s on the run and he’s not and there’s absolutely no way that she would risk something happening to Clint when he just got back to his kids again.
So, she takes a deep breath, brushes her teeth and heads back into the bedroom.
When she walks in this time, Wanda’s reading again, but this time lying down with the book propped up on her chest and the blankets covering her from the stomach down.
Natasha discards her old clothes with her other dirty laundry, making a mental note that she needs to do laundry tomorrow, and closes the bedroom door.
She then checks the locks on the windows, making sure that they’re as secure as they’re going to get before closing the blinds and then the curtains.
She feels Wanda’s eyes on her but ignores it, far more concerned with her safety for the moment.
Once she feels secure, Natasha makes work of switching the pillow case back to her own, carefully folding the other one and putting it on her nightstand. Left with nothing to do, she sits on the bed, an incredibly stiff feeling in her bones despite how exhausted she is.
“Do you sleep sitting up?” Wanda asks after a minute. Natasha thinks that out of anyone else’s mouth the question would sound snippy or mean, but Wanda has this way of making it sound sincere. Or Natasha’s crushing hard and losing it.
“I could,” Natasha answers honestly, reaching for her blanket at the end of the bed, “It’s not the most productive sleep, but it works.”
“Well,” Wanda closes her book and puts it on the nightstand, “We’re looking for productive sleep. So lie down.”
“Bossy,” Natasha mumbles, moving to lie down as to not provoke some kind of argument, “What were you reading?”
“Nothing good,” Wanda admits as she turns off the light, leaving the room in a near pitch black, “Vision bought it when we were in Germany.”
Vision.
Natasha nods, still feeling incredibly stiff and confused as to how she’s going to be able to fall asleep like this.
“Did you like Germany?” she asks.
“It was okay,” Wanda responds softly, clearly tired, “Is German another one of the languages you speak?”
“One of them, yeah,” Natasha replies, tugging her blanket tighter around her and trying her best to get comfortable while still giving Wanda plenty of space.
“So that’s six,” Wanda hums, “and you speak twelve… I’ll figure them all out someday.”
“You will?” Natasha asks, amused.
“Yup,” Wanda yawns, “Go to sleep, Nat.”
“You go to sleep,” Natasha retorts, finally feeling the tiredness creep into her brain.
“I will,” Wanda responds softly.
Natasha just hums in response, somehow finally falling asleep next to Wanda.
It’s actually really nice.