The First Snow
“Happy birthday to you,” the group sang out as Ellie beamed from where she sat at the head of the table.
“And many moreeeee,” Tony finished, gaining a giggle from the now 7-year-old.
“Go on, Bear, make a wish,” Maria nodded towards the candles.
Ellie shook her head, “don’t have any wishes.”
There was a small mountain of gifts off to the girl’s side, she was surrounded by some of the people she loved the most, there really was nothing else she could think of to want.
“Well blow them out anyway,” Maria laughed and watched as her little girl did just that.
Natasha took in the scene, unable to remember a time when so many people had come together to celebrate something wonderful. She watched as Maria got up and cut Ellie’s birthday cake, one that she had stayed up the night before to make with the woman, and laughed as Bruce and Pepper politely declined. It wasn’t surprising after Ellie had found out what dirt cakes were, it was exactly what she wanted and Natasha had to admit, they had done a great job of making the Oreo gummy worm mixture look truly authentic.
“Don’t think they had this back in our day, huh Buck?” Steve elbowed the man next to him who gave a small shake of the head as he ate the slice in front of him.
It was a tense first few weeks as the two settled into life in the tower, Barnes was prone to night terrors which led him to wander the building in the night. Maria and Tony were less than thrilled to learn the man had found a flaw in the ventilation system that he could explore without anyone knowing. Natasha just thought he was curious and liked loud, dark spaces, much like Clint.
But now, the two sat next to each other, a little softer around the edges especially after Ellie had neatly braided the man's hair. The little girl had a way of getting people to soften up.
“No way, that’s way too big,” Maria laughed as the child tried to cut her own piece of cake.
“Is not,” Ellie shook her head and then locked eyes with the woman across from her, “Right Tasha?”
The redhead looked to Maria who shook her head, Hard ass Hill in full force, and then looked at Ellie who had massive puppy dog eyes. She tried her best to figure out who was the bigger threat.
“It’s her birthday Ria, you only turn 7 once,” she shrugged.
“Traitor,” Maria squinted and cut the piece.
The apartment filled with noise once more as everyone chatted with each other, eating their cake and catching up. Natasha listened as Tony and Bruce talked about their newest work with Artificial Intelligence, tuning out when the talk got too technical between the men. She absentmindedly leaned into Maria’s side as the woman threw an arm over her shoulder, talking to Pepper about different investment opportunities Sark Industries was looking to make.
“Did that contact you have ever tell you about the widows we were tracking?” Steve grabbed her attention.
“Yeah,” she thought about the conversation between her and Yelena, “they were able to free one of them, the other slipped through the cracks.”
“That’s too bad,” the blonde sighed, “they looked like they were in bad shape.”
“That’s what I heard too, but they’ll get the other one, sooner or later.”
“Let’s hope for sooner,” Steve held his glass up to her.
She nodded, tapping her glass against his in agreement.
Ellie hopped off her chair and wedged herself between Natasha and Maria, looking up at the latter.
“Mommy, how much longer?” her eyes were fixed on the woman’s watch.
“Still 24 hours,” the brunette didn’t have to look at the time to know the answer.
It was the question that had been on the girl’s mind morning noon and night since she had found out a family from SHIELD was moving to New York. From what the spy could gather, their little boy was Ellie’s age and a good friend that she was ecstatic about seeing again. He was finishing his school term in DC before the family moved to the city to work for Stark.
“Still?” Ellie squinted and tilted her head.
“Still,” Maria chuckled, a softness that Natasha was certain she could listen to for the rest of her life and still not get tired of.
The child tilted her head back and sighed before she disappeared down the hallway. It was a few minutes longer before she reemerged, a small jar in her hands. Ellie glanced around the room, double-checking that all of the adults were preoccupied before she sprinkled some of her cake into the jar, Natasha continued to look at Pepper, pretending not to notice.
The girl was gone and back to her seat before anyone else saw the suspicious activity. At least that’s what Ellie figured, Natasha however watched as a pair of cool eyes followed the child before sliding over to Natasha who shrugged. Barnes gave what appeared to be a smile (or perhaps a grimace) and continued listening to Steve who was talking about volunteering at the VA.
“Come on, you gotta open some of them!” Tony pushed a few of the wrapped gifts across the ground and over to Ellie who looked to Maria for guidance.
“There might be some stuff in there you can show Liam,” the brunette shrugged.
It was all it took for Ellie to go ripping into the presents, eyes filling with delight as she opened a Lego space shuttle to build from Steve and Bucky.
“Thank you,” the girl got up and hugged both men.
“You’re welcome, I figured if they were fun for us when we were your age, you might like it too,” the blonde laughed.
Ellie opened present after present including a science kit from Bruce, a set of walkie-talkies from the Bartons, and an RC car from Yelena. Tony claimed his couldn’t be opened inside much to the dismay of Maria who had saved her present to the girl for that night.
“Come on you gotta get a better vantage point,” Steve slung the child up on his shoulders which caused Natasha’s stomach to flip.
“She’ll be okay,” Maria whispered in her ear.
It was then that she realized she had been crushing Maria’s hand out of fear.
“Right,” she swallowed thickly released the hand (slightly), and tried not to wince at every movement the two made as they watched the car race around the apartment.
“You seem invested,” Tony smirked from where he sat down in the now vacant chair next to her.
She was, more than she had even come to terms with herself. In the last month, she had fallen head over heels in love with not only Maria but Ellie too. As much as she tried to give the two space, she was over at the apartment well over half the days of the week. But Stark didn’t need to know that. Not yet.
“Whatever,” she dismissed him, “it’s your building, your liability if she gets hurt.”
The billionaire waved his hand dismissively, “We have insurance for that, right Pep?”
The woman paused her conversation with Maria to nod, “Right, everyone in this room’s covered by the best insurance you can buy. Personal, professional, bodily, property, auto, I mean you could get into a terrible car accident and the insurance claim wouldn’t even be a blip on our radar.”
“Your move,” he smiled broadly.
“ Ellie, you want to call Yelena for your birthday ?” she asked with fluid ease in Russian, partially to piss off Tony, partially because her sister had asked to call the little girl when they were free, partially because she couldn’t stand the anxiety of the girl being so far off the ground.
“Yes,” Ellie barely got the word out before she launched herself off Steve’s shoulders and onto the couch.
“Make sure to thank her for the gift,” Maria looked at the car and then the girl.
Ellie nodded and waited patiently as Natasha pulled out her phone and called her sister. It took a few rings before the blonde answered.
“ Happy Birthday Rat !” Yelena called out.
“ Wait for me to put her on, she just opened her present ,” Natasha rolled her eyes.
“ Yes, yes, I’m the best gift giver, now put her on .”
The redhead handed the phone to the child who held it in her tiny hands, pushing it to her ear as she walked back to her room, chatting in Russian as she did so.
“Kids these days,” Bruce joked.
The air was cold the next day, cold in only the way of impending winter could be as Natasha walked outside Stark Tower with Maria and Ellie. Her eyes had just adjusted to the light as the little girl bolted a few feet down the sidewalk, her body colliding with another before anyone could say a word. Giggles and words meshed into one as the two kids fell to the ground and a fine layer of snow fell around them, it was captivating.
“Safe to say they missed each other,” Agent Ruiz laughed as she walked up and hugged Maria.
It was then that Natasha finally recognized the family, they had been the ones to watch Ellie almost exactly a year ago. The night she and Maria had gone out on a date, the night Ellie had been taken. She pushed the memory aside and tried to pretend not to notice that the father of the boy was still just as starstruck as he had been previously.
“Good to see you again,” the agent brought her in for a hug as well.
“Good to see you,” she offered a small smile and watched as the two children finally stood up.
“Liam, breathe,” the father of the boy chided.
Liam did in fact take one large breath before speaking quickly again, Ellie hanging on his every word.
“I figured I could give you these so that you can get in next week,” Maria held out ID cards and key fobs to the woman, “and then show you your office space.”
“Sounds great,” the woman took the items and placed them in her purse.
“If you want we can grab lunch and we can drive you to the apartment they have you staying in,” the brunette offered.
Ruiz nodded and placed her hand on top of Ellie’s head, “maybe you can tell Liam about his new school.”
“Yes,” Ellie nodded and gave a quick hug to the woman.
“Lead the way.”
And Maria did, to the different floors of the building, to the woman’s new office, and to lunch, at a restaurant across the street from the apartment they drove a few blocks away to get to. Natasha trailed dutifully, talking to who she now knew was Dominic Ruiz, a nurse excited to move to a new city. She kept an eye on Liam and Ellie who clicked together like there was no time missing at all, their fingers rarely separating for long enough for Liam to use his hands in explanation.
“I would say,” Maria tilted her head slightly, squinting at the building, “75% of the people in the building work for Stark in one capacity or another.”
“75%?” Dominic’s eyebrows raised as he took in the large building in front of him, the snow falling in a picturesque way.
“Give or take,” the Commander nodded, instinctively placing her hand on the handle of the door as Ellie came racing by. The little girl softly knocked into the softness of her mother's hand rather than the cold metal.
“Big company.” Elena shrugged to her husband.
Apparently, no one else thought the cat-like reflexes were impressive and Natasha snapped back to reality, standing up a little straighter.
“You’re on the 8th floor,” the brunette showed them all through the lobby, flashing her badge to the security guard as she did so, “there’s another family on that floor with a son a few years older than Liam.”
They all got out on the designated floor as she continued to speak, “he still goes to the same school. Oh, actually that’s them.”
There was another family just entering their own apartment, Maria called out to them in Spanish then pointed to the Ruiz family and introduced them. It wasn’t often that Maria spoke in another other than English and Natasha once again had to remind herself to pull it together as she listened to the woman speak.
“ Oh right, we saw the movers there yesterday !” the neighbor nodded, responding back in the same language.
They continued to talk long enough for Ellie and Liam to start racing up and down the long hallways, and for Natasha to remind herself two more times to stop drooling over the smooth flow of the language over Maria’s tongue. A tongue that she wanted-
“You’re the black widow, aren’t you?” the boy, a few years older than Ellie asked, his accent thick.
“That depends, you break any laws recently?” She cocked an eyebrow, and the boy shook his head fiercely, “then you can just call me Natasha.”
She stuck out her hand which the boy shook, a grin breaking out over his face. They spoke for a few more minutes before Maria said her goodbyes and they entered the Ruiz’s new apartment. The space was large with shrink-wrapped belongings covering most of the open floor plan.
“Wow, windows!” Ellie beamed from where she and Liam had raced in as if her own apartment wasn’t covered in them.
But Natasha knew, more than anyone else in the room, that windows would never get old. Not to them. They had spent so much time in windowless rooms, in the dark and damp dormitories that bore nothing but anger and mold… so much mold.
“The movers said they got everything from the last place,” Maria switched back to English, much to the Russians' disappointment.
“Now comes the fun part,” Dominic wiggled his eyebrows, “rearranging the furniture.”
“This guy,” Ruiz sighed, “he’s got an obsession.”
“That’s okay, Ellie has an obsession with worms right now,” Maria shrugged, “I’d prefer furniture.”
“I thought it was space?” Dominic questioned.
“I thought it was caterpillars?” Elena followed up.
“Space is still the main one, Caterpillars stopped when we moved,” Hill clarified.
“So… do you like... have them in your new place or?” the other woman winced.
“No!” Maria laughed for just a second before going quiet, “Well, actually I don’t know… which really isn't comforting, I’m truly losing sleep over it.”
“Did you ask her?”
Natasha watched as the brunette nodded, “watch this. Ellie, do we have worms in our apartment?”
The curly-haired child burst into laughter, elbowing Liam until he too was laughing, “So funny Mommy!” and then the two were off into another room.
“Every time,” Maria furrowed her brows, her eyes deep with concern as she whispered to herself, “every time.”
“Liam started collecting the gum he’s already chewed,” Elena offered what Natasha could only assume was supposed to be a form of comfort.
She herself scrunched her nose, worms weren’t as bad as chewed gum. They all talked until the sun began to set in the windows that Ellie and Liam were pressing their faces against. Maria and Elena went over the onboarding schedule for the next Monday and Natasha talked to Dominic about his new position at the hospital just around the corner, he would be starting in two days. By the time they said their goodbyes and made it to their car, the snow from earlier had really started to stick, a soft blanket covering most surfaces.
“Spanish was your first language, huh?” Natasha buckled herself into the passenger seat and looked to Maria who finished buckling Ellie into her carseat.
“Yeah,” the commander brushed off the snow and closed the driver's side door, “Russian?”
The redhead thought back to her childhood, it was so fragmented she wasn’t positive, “I think so, but they start us pretty young on a ton of them. Ellie, did you learn Russian first?”
“Um,” she huffed and tilted her head, squinting slightly, “no. Romani.”
“Right,” Natasha remembered the girl’s heritage.
“Then Russian, and French too,” the child kicked her legs out, “Mommy, there is Christmas music.”
The brunette winced and slowly turned on the radio, true to the girl's word, Christmas had started playing. Maria had made it a rule that the girl could only start listening to it after Thanksgiving, a rule that was set in place after the 13th playing for White Christmas by the Drifters.
“Why?” the older woman brought the conversation back to the two adults.
Natasha gave her a sly smile, “you should do it more often. Ya know, just to keep Ellie sharp.”
“Oh is that right?” Maria shook her head, knowing well that she spoke to the girl plenty in Spanish.
The redhead just hummed in agreement.
“Well, alright,” she turned the music up just a little more and they fell into a comfortable silence.
It happened in slow motion, Natasha watched as Maria pulled into the intersection, smiling as Ellie sang along to the Christmas song on the radio. She blinked and instinctively reached back for the girl as headlights flooded the driver's side window. The next sequence of events was a blur, a distinctive crunching noise filled the air as the entire car shook with impact.
Natasha blinked once more and was suddenly covered in shards of glass as she took in a ragged breath. She coughed and winced as the airbag in front of her side slowly deflated, the glass puncturing it in at odd angles.
The Russian blinked again, trying to make sense of what happened, the horn was loud but she could still hear the Christmas music, the music Ellie had- she whipped around at the realization, the memory that she was not alone. Suddenly everything made sense and she had to remind herself to not panic.
“Ria?” she coughed again and looked at the driver's seat where the brunette was slouched over, her head hanging limply in the air as blood dripped from her nose.
There was a sound in the backseat that spurred her into motion, her hands struggling with the seatbelt for a moment as she freed herself and opened the passenger door.
“Fuck!” A man in front of the car yelled, “I’m so sorry, I hit a patch of ice and-”
“Jarvis get me medical for an unconscious adult and child,” she spoke into her phone quickly before trying to get to the backseat, “Both Hills were in a car accident, track my location.”
“Oh fuck there's a kid? Oh fuck oh-” a group of people guided the truck driver over to the sidewalk where he promptly threw up.
She rounded the corner of the car and immediately saw there would be no way of reaching either member of the car from that side, the truck had T-boned them and crushed both doors. Natasha went back to the other side, pushing off hands that were trying to force her to sit down.
“Mommy!” Ellie thrashed around in her car seat.
The Russian got to the backseat just as the child closed her eyes tightly.
“Ellie no!” Natasha crawled over the broken glass and placed herself in front of the girl, “you cannot teleport, look at me.”
Wild green eyes met her own for a second before looking around the car again “You are hurt, you cannot teleport right now okay?”
“Mommy?” a sob ripped through the child.
“ She’s going to be okay ,” she stroked the girl's hair to keep her still and spoke to her in their shared mother tongue, “ but you need to try and stay still for me .”
Ellie’s face was covered in cuts, glass embedded into her hair and there was something off about the position of her arm. Natasha reached for it as red and blue lights flooded the scene, instantly the girl began to thrash around again.
“Ellie, Ellie,” she tried to get the girl’s attention.
“Mommy,” the child wailed.
“ Baby look at me ,” Natasha cupped the girl's cheeks, green eyes finally locking on her, “ Mommy’s going to be okay, the doctors are here and they’re going to help her .”
“Tasha,” Tony’s voice cut through his suit as he shoved the truck away from their car with one motion, and ripped the doors off with another.
Two ambulances drove even closer and immediately paramedics were on the scene, placing a C-spine collar on Ellie and cutting her out of her car seat. All Natasha could think was that she looked so small when they placed her on the stretcher.
“Ma’am are you-” a paramedic took her arm.
“I’m fine, is she going to be okay?” she couldn’t take her eyes off of Maria who was still unconscious or worse-
“We’re doing everything we can but we need to get a move on the little one,” the paramedic motioned to the back of the ambulance, “so unless you want to stay…”
She looked at Maria once more before looking at Ellie who looked ghostly pale and terrified.
“No, no I’ll,” she shook her head and followed the woman into the back of the ambulance, taking Ellie’s outreached hand in her own "I'll stay with her."