Chapter Text
They move to California on an overly hot day in July. Yelena sings along to the radio all the way, getting on Natasha’s nerves, and their parents are discussing a new home and a new job, and Nat just wants it all to end as soon as possible.
Charging on the phone died a couple of hours ago, and her ass is numb from sitting in one position. Nat can’t say that she hates this city, because it hardly differs from the previous one (except for the weather). She can't even say that she will miss someone for real. She had friends, but not close friends, and, perhaps, this should worry her.
Well, she will miss Antonia. A cute, not particularly chatty girl with whom they danced together.
Natasha exhales in relief as they drive up to a small house with an uneven lawn and a wide front porch. The sun is a blinding and the T-shirt sticks to the body, but Natasha jumps out of the car at the same time as Yelena and immediately tries to stretch her muscles.
“Kids, this is our new shack,” Dad announces good-naturedly and loudly, looking at the house as if it’s no less than a European castle. It's not even better than their house in Oklahoma, honestly. And the paint on the walls has peeled off from time.
“Dibs on bigger room!” Yelena declares on the spot, clutching her heavy backpack in her hands and grinning at the top of her mouth. She seems too excited.
Child. This is another adventure for her. Surely she will glue the walls with her posters and fill up the shelves with toys, refusing to clean up the mess.
“Lena, your rooms with are the same size,” Mom sobers, not looking up from her phone, and Natasha sends Yelena a victorious look and a grin. After all, they are sisters and they are more alike than it seems.
Yelena still tries to convince her that her room is a couple inches longer.
***
The first person she meets is a neighbor's boy with a mischievous smile and an abrasion on his chin, who looks her age. He hangs head down from the treehouse, and Natasha raises an eyebrow.
"Aren't you too old for a tree house?"
He just smiles, making no attempt to jump. He has sun-tanned skin and bleached hair, and a purple thin T-shirt is gathered around his neck, almost covering his head.
“You are our new neighbor, right? I'm Clint.”
“Natasha.”
“Okay, Tasha. Need help moving?”
Years later, Nat will say that he forced her to become friends using his disarming directness, but now she just smiles and shrugs. She also ignores the pet name he chose for her and replies:
“I won’t say no. Can you help me sort out a couple of boxes?”
Clint rattles about his cousin Kate, the school, the baseball team and their main star Steve Rogers, who, by coincidence, is a good friend of his, about Director Fury and the myths about how he lost an eye (the most common gossip is about a mad cat, not original), about the party-goer Tony Stark and the guys from the school-theater. Natasha begins to think that she didn’t know that much even about her former school. The amount of new information makes her head spin, but Clint stubbornly calls her Tasha and convinces her that she will fit in. She has no reason not to believe him.
Mom makes them lemonade, mercilessly overdoing it with lemons, and they strengthen their friendship by exchanging phone numbers.
***
On the very first day of school, Clint introduces her to a bunch of his friends - seriously, he knows half of the school - and after a couple of hours Natasha receives an invitation to Stark's party and a place at the common table for lunch. Nice guy Steve is sandwiched between Sam and Bucky, Clint takes long glances at the table where the cheerleaders are sitting, Bruce awkwardly rolls broccoli on a plate, and the red-haired girl, Pepper, leaves in the middle of lunch for the school committee, leaving Natasha the only girl in the company.
“So, you're Russian,” Tony Stark flaps his long eyelashes, and Natasha immediately knows what Clint meant by talking about this adorable asshole. She just raises an eyebrow and crosses her arms over her chest, leaning back a little in her chair. “Can you say something in Russian?”
“Stark, you’re an idiot,” Clint shoves him in the side.
“Ty nevynosimyi nahal.”
“I'm sure you said how cool I am.”
Nat chuckles and they all laugh. Perhaps she has just found friends.
***
In literature class she discovers that she’s lost a pen. Attempts to find it in a backpack don’t lead to the desired result, only to the fact that a couple of heads turn around at the noise Natasha makes, and Mr. Heimdall sends her a heavy look in the middle of his explanation.
“Here you go,” there is a quiet but confident whisper, and Natasha is faced with the bluest eyes she has ever seen. This moment is worth remembering, because Nat just blinks for a few moments, looking at the girl's face, who, turning around, holds out a pen. She doesn't smile, and this pen is just a pen, not an attempt to make an acquaintance.
Finally, Natasha smiles gratefully.
“Thanks.”
The girl returns her attention to the lesson, leaving her staring at the top of her head. On impulse, Natasha writes a note on a piece of paper torn from a notebook (she hasn’t been paying attention to Heimdahl for a good part of the lesson).
She scrapes "I am Natasha", leans forward and gently shoves the girl in the back with the non-writing side of her pen and hands her a note, trying to pretend that she is very carried away by the teacher's story.
She sees no reaction but gets the note back with a neat "Maria" written on the line below.
***
When she tells Clint about dancing at the previous school, his eyes light up dangerously.
“You can try cheerleading,” he suggests. They sit in a small cafe and share a large portion of french fries. Clint casually takes a long sip of his chocolate milkshake, and Nat immediately remembers his glance at the cheerleaders and quickly adds two plus two.
“Do you have a crush on one of the cheerleaders?”
He blushes. Really blushes, trying to hide his face behind his glass before snorting unconvincingly.
“Jeez, why?”
“So, who is she?”
Less than five minutes later, Clint tells her about Laura. Obviously, Laura has the most charming smile and a very pretty face, and she also does cheerleading and works as a babysitter on weekends. Clint's gaze turns dreamy and when Natasha teases him, he doesn't deny anything.
In general, she likes his idea - she still wanted to keep fit and cheerleading seems like a good alternative to dancing.
When they are about to leave, Natasha notices Maria, the girl with pen, at a table in the corner. She is wearing a gray hoodie and her hair is pulled back in a bun, and she is too engrossed in her homework to notice anybody.
Natasha suppresses the urge to walk up to her to say hello.
***
At the next literature class, she rests her gaze on the already familiar top of head. A couple of minutes after the start of the class, she quietly touches Maria on the shoulder.
“Got a spare pen?” She asks with the most innocent look she is capable of. She bites her lip from the inside, watching Maria squint slightly before lifting her shoulders up and reaching for her own backpack. She doesn't particularly like to chat. Or she doesn’t want to break discipline during the class.
Anyway, she hands Nat a pen and turns away.
Immediately after the lessons Natasha enrolls in the cheerleading team. And at the very first training session, she sees Maria again - she warms up on the field with a group of girls in sports uniforms with the emblem of the school. She smiles and gestures, chatting about something with the blonde who is standing next to her, and Nat sticks a little to the way her laugh transforms her face.
Natasha is in trouble. So very, very in trouble. She hastily looks away and focuses on joining the cheerleader group.
***
She asks for the pen four more times (and only one of them she really needed a pen) until she decides to act more directly. She catches Maria before training in the school hallway. Maria's backpack hangs on one shoulder, and her hair is pulled into a low ponytail. She raises an eyebrow.
“Do you want something? Need a pen again?”
Nat grins. So Maria did notice.
“No, I wanted to thank you.”
She takes from her pocket a handful of barbariski, that left over from a summer trip to Russia. She had to hide it from Yelena; Natasha tries not to show her own embarrassment in any way when Maria carefully accepts the gift.
“What's this?”
“Lollipops. From Russia You can't find them here.”
“Sounds like something illegal.”
A tiny grin appears on Maria's lips, to which Nat responds with a wider grin. A pleasant excitement swirls in her stomach, and she barely stands still. She probably looks stupid now, and therefore she shrugs her shoulders.
“See you.”
She urgently needs to blow off some steam and figure out what the hell is going on because she just reminded herself of Clint talking about Laura.