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Wanda is a creature of definite place. She never seems to be between-- never in a hallway, always in a room. It makes Natasha nervous, the way the other woman seems to just appear. But Natasha exists in the margins. She's a person who survives on the borders, who thrives in the liminal spaces of her life.
"You're the only one here who speaks Sokovian," Wanda says, appearing in the communal kitchen where Natasha is making herself coffee.
"Yes," Natasha agrees without looking up.
"I miss hearing it."
That makes Natasha pause, actually stop and look at the girl. "Vision could learn it," she offers, but she knows that's not what Wanda means.
"He could," Wanda agrees, finally moving to enter the room, opening the fridge and selecting a wedge of soft cheese. "But I'd rather you."
Natasha thinks about that for a second, adding a splash of milk to the coffee and watching the color change, the black fade into brown. "Okay," she says. "What would you like to talk about?"
Wanda smiles, opening the thin foil on the cheese and taking a bite. Natasha's stomach turns-- the idea of that much richness, without any kind of backing, makes her feel slightly ill. "Tell me about Russia."
"Cold," Natasha says. "Dark. Lots of historical figures falling out of windows."
Wanda smiles thinly-- something the girl doesn't do much, but Natasha understands. "Sounds like Sokovia," she says. "Except we don't have a history."
"You do," Natasha says. "Steve told me your history."
Wanda waves her hand dismissively, and Natasha starts at the move. It's a miniature flinch, more a blink than a wince, but Wanda catches it all the same.
"Your people recruited in Sokovia," Wanda says, pointedly looking away from Natasha. "But by the time they came to the schools, I wasn't in classes."
"Lucky you," Natasha says, and Wanda nods, finishing off the wedge of cheese.
"Lucky," she says, the word like a curse on her tongue. "What is it they say, in Russia? I would have had no luck, if not for misfortune?"
"Yes," Natasha says. "Не́ было бы сча́стья, да несча́стье помогло́."
"I would have had no misfortune," Wanda says, "if not for that luck."
Natasha blinks, and the other woman is gone.
They don't talk often, which is fine. Natasha doesn't need to talk to anyone to know their mind, and neither does Wanda. They work well, they understand each other. Each woman knows what it is to be trapped, to be underground.
"How are you coping?" Natasha asks, the next time Wanda makes an appearance in her space-- this time in the library of the compound, where Natasha has curled up with a copy of The Shining.
"Coping," Wanda say the word like she has to hear it again, like she needs to feel it in her mouth as she sits in an adjacent armchair. "Coping is not the word I would use."
"Surviving, then?"
Wanda nods. "More like it."
Natasha watches the other woman for a long moment-- she's small, petite. Young. Wanda can't be more than 19 or 20, Natasha thinks. The same age she had been when Clint found her. But Wanda is shy, in a way. Less confidant without her brother. She hides behind her hair like it's a shield, something to obscure her face from the rest of the world. "You were the last off of the city," Natasha says.
"Vision and I," Wanda agrees.
"If he hadn't come--"
Wanda shrugs, staring into the middle-distance. "It doesn't matter, if. If he hadn't come. If Pietro had survived. If Tony Stark never made a bomb. If. What's the point of if?"
"Okay," Natasha nods, surprised at the venom in the young woman's voice. "I'm glad you're here."
"Only half," Wanda says.
Natasha folds down the corner of the page she’s on, setting the book in her lap. "When your parents died, was there less of you?"
"I still had Pietro," Wanda says, staring at her hands. "But for a while, yes. We were less."
"And then?"
"And then there was time, and there was work." Wanda looks up and their eyes meet for a moment. "There was survival, and something to become."
Natasha nods. "There's always time, and there will always be work to do."
Something flickers at Wanda's fingertips, red and vaporous. "Did you have a sister or a brother, Natasha?"
"I had 28," Natasha says, her stomach turning. "Sisters in arms."
"Not the same," Wanda's voice is sad. "You-- there is no way to say it. In Sokovia-- there were other twins. A pair of men, older than us. One of them died in a bombing, and the other hid away. Because twins should die at the same time."
There's such a darkness in her voice, such a desperate need, that Natasha wonders if perhaps she should have stayed on the city. "You don't have to hide away."
Wanda stands, straightening her skirt. "We all do," she says.
"Do you love Barton?"
Natasha is in the gym, stretching before her workout, having just finished a Skype chat checking in on Clint and Laura and the kids. She's not sure where Wanda came from, or how she got so involved in her routine that she failed to notice the presence in the room.
"Yes," Natasha says, standing and walking to the gymnastic equipment.
"Does he love you?" Wanda asks, following.
"Yes."
Natasha dips her hands into chalk, brushes them gently, and jumps forward, gripping the bar in front of her tightly. It's a flexibility routine, one she's had since she was a child, one that works the same muscles, that feels like a glove she can slip on. She's aware of Wanda's eyes, aware of being watched as her body flies, as she catches and spins and releases, but Natasha finishes the routine and dismounts, moving to the floor to do a few extra stretches.
"Have you ever lost someone?" Wanda asks, as if there wasn't a gymnastic exhibition in the middle of their conversation.
"Yes," Natasha says, trying not to become annoyed, trying to remember that Wanda is a young woman alone in the world for the first time.
"Who was he?"
"She," Natasha corrects, gently. "She was another in the training."
Wanda nods. "Did you kill her?"
The laugh that slips out of Natasha's mouth is bitter, aged like wine and perfectly sharp. "No," she says. "Not me."
"Then who?"
Natasha sighs, pausing her movements and turning to look at Wanda. She's standing, still, and Natasha is seated, making the balance of the conversation strange, alien.
"Sit," she says. "There's no truth in feet."
Wanda smiles, sinking to her knees in front of Natasha and waiting.
"There were rules," Natasha says, softly. "About what we could do. What we couldn't. We had to compete, always to be strong. There were no friends in training. Faina was number two in our class. I was number one. And one day, that hate-- that competition, it turned. We were twelve."
The gym is still, and the stink of sweat feels overpowering as Natasha takes a breath, watching Wanda's face, but part of her thinks that the other woman already knows this, that she must have seen it when she was picking memories to inflict.
"All transgressions were punished," Natasha says. "I don't know how they knew. For all-- they might have just looked into our heads and taken it out, when we were sleeping. Stolen the dreams of girls who had kissed one time in a dark classroom. It doesn't matter. Madame knew. She always knew. So she took us to the operating room."
Wanda makes a soft noise, and Natasha pauses. "Go on," Wanda breathes. "Operating room."
"It took three days," Natasha says. "Three days, and more pain than I can put words to. Pain in all senses-- sometimes they hurt me. Sometimes I lay there and listened to her scream. Sometimes we were alone and waiting. And every time they stopped, they told us that if we said who started it, who it was that started the thing, that the one who told would go free."
"You broke," Wanda breathes.
"No," Natasha smiles sadly. "Faina did. And Madame put a bullet in her brain."
The look of horror on Wanda's face is too much, and Natasha has to look away. "Why?"
"Because," Natasha says, simply. "They weren't looking for someone who could be broken. They were looking for someone who would never."
Wanda shakes her head, standing quickly and turning her back. Natasha echoes her movement, climbing fluidly to her feet.
"You were in the building, with the bomb for how many days?" Natasha asks, sadly, stepping forward to lay a hand on Wanda's shoulder. "You accepted death. You knew what was coming. And then it didn't. Every day of my life, someone dropped that bomb. And death never came."
A sob rocks the room, and Wanda turns, wrapping her arms tightly around Natasha's waist and burying her face in Natasha's neck.
"I know," Natasha says, rubbing her back gently. "But there are days when I don't even want it. And they-- they get closer and closer together all the time."
"It never goes away?" Wanda whispers, her voice cracking.
Natasha shakes her head, moving to look Wanda in the eyes. "Pain never goes away. But it gets-- lighter. Sometimes."
"When?"
Natasha takes her hand, smiling gently.
"When you're ready."
"It was my idea," Wanda says, softly. They're in the kitchen again, but this time Natasha is drinking red wine and leaning against the counter while Wanda cooks some kind of sausage that smells like home to Natasha. The boys have all vacated, seeming to be less keen on the smell, but that's fine with Natasha. More for her and Wanda.
"What was?"
"Hydra," Wanda says, covering her skillet and turning her back to the stove. "Pietro, he always wanted to do something, but he was all talk. All about the moment. 'Let's rob a bank' or 'Let's beat up that man'. I was the one who went out and found a way."
"Did you know at the time?" Natasha asks. "Who they were?"
Wanda shakes her head. "No, but I didn't ask. They told me-- they told me we would probably die, but if we didn't, that we could stop what happened to our parents, what happened to us, from happening to anyone else."
"Sounds like a good deal," Natasha shrugs. "I would have taken it."
"Mama would say, 'Don't wade into a river without knowing a ford,'" Wanda says, opening the fridge and pulling out a covered dish. Her hands are trembling, her fingers glowing slightly with the tension and emotion of the memory.
"Sometimes there is no ford," Natasha tells her, taking the dish, letting their hands touch for a moment. "Sometimes you have to swim."
"Hit the bag," Natasha says, meeting Wanda's eyes. "Show me how they hit in Sokovia."
Wanda gives her an evil grin and her hands glow for a moment before a jolt rips through the bag, knocking Natasha off her feet.
The chain swings empty, the bag gone, and Wanda peers down, her face floating into Natasha's vision. "That is how we hit in Sokovia," she says, her smile wide. "Want to show me how they hit in Russia?"
Their first mission as Avengers goes well enough-- there's a small meteor that lands in the Mojave, and it's pretty routine to accompany scientists to make sure there's nothing living on it, no tech that should be quarantined. But still, the team works well together; Sam and Rhodey control the airspace, Vision and Wanda and Steve probe the debris, and Natasha coordinates with the control. It works like it should, which is more than Natasha can say for most of the missions the other Avengers went on.
Which is why Natasha is surprised when she gets out of the shower after they get home and Wanda is sitting on her bed.
"Hi," Natasha offers, not sure what new step this might be.
Wanda looks up at her with watery eyes, and she doesn't have to say anything. It's clear, it's obvious what she needs. Natasha secures her towel and sits next to Wanda on her bed, wrapping an arm around her.
"Tell me."
"I miss him," Wanda whispers, her voice hitching. "I miss him so much. I think-- it should have been me. It should have been Barton. It should have been you. Not him."
"No," Natasha agrees, petting Wanda's hair gently. "It's not fair. Life sucks like that."
"I don't want this," Wanda hiccups. "I don't want to do this without him."
"You don't have to do this," Natasha tells her. "You don't have to. Leave tonight, if you want. But whatever you do-- I'm sorry, I am-- but whatever you do is going to be without him."
Wanda crumples in on herself, the sobs shaking her shoulders as Natasha holds her.
Natasha doesn't get hurt often. But there's a fight with a Hydra holdout sect, and she ends up taking a shot to her shoulder. It's a graze, really. Barely a hit. She grits her teeth and tries not to make a sound, not to give in to the spike of pain.
The light has barely faded from her peripheral vision, the pain just starting to slide through her veins when her vision goes red.
She's young, younger than she ever was, and the room is warm and the chair is soft. She has a book, made of cardboard that's peeling at the edges, and the pictures are colorful, bright, and simple.
"кра́сный," a voice says, pointing to a picture of an apple. Red.
Natasha smiles, looking up into the light, searching for the source. There is no face, only the voice. "кра́сный," it repeats, and she laughs.
She opens her eyes to a bright light, a hospital room. Things are okay, she thinks-- her shoulder is stiff, but it doesn't hurt.
"You're awake," Wanda says, softly.
"I do that," Natasha agrees, turning to look at her friend.
Wanda looks rested-- she doesn't have the same haggard look Clint has when Natasha gets hurt. Either this injury wasn't so bad, or Wanda has a lick of sense and managed to snag a shower and some sleep before coming to visit.
"How'm I doing?"
"Good," Wanda says, smiling thinly. "You-- you started to go into shock. I gave you a memory. So you wouldn't feel it."
The light and the voice come flooding back. The word. "It wasn't mine," Natasha says. "The memory. It wasn't."
"No," Wanda agrees. "It was mine. I-- I looked. Quickly, I looked for something like home for you. I didn't find it."
Home.
"I kinda grew up in a bunker," Natasha sighs. "I don't have a lot of happy before a few years ago."
Wanda nods. "I saw. And there are things there that aren't yours. Things someone else put there."
"Don't I know it," Natasha laughs, letting herself relax into the pillow. "But, hey. Thanks."
The room is still as their eyes meet, and Natasha feels something like a maternal surge of pride over Wanda and how well she coped with the situation. It's a confusing feeling, and she's pretty sure it's the fault of the painkillers. She's only felt anything like maternal once before, and she'd like it to go away quickly.
"Get some rest," Wanda says.
"Wait," Natasha reaches out. "Wait. I--"
She closes her eyes, pressing a hand to her forehead. "Listen. The Red Room. You remember showing me that?"
"Yes," Wanda says, her voice light, thin. It should hurt her more, Natasha thinks. It should be more painful to remember when they were enemies.
"The graduation ceremony. You remember what it was?"
"Yes." This time she sounds afraid, which is good. "They took away part of you."
Natasha smiles bitterly. "No," she says. "That's-- yes. They did that. But that wasn't the whole thing. There was--more."
"Tell me."
It hurts, calling up the memory. Natasha's breath hitches and she stares up at the ceiling, afraid of how her friend will look at her when she finally knows. "We had younger girls, in the program. Girls who were our charges. We were mentoring them. Making them great. And graduation had two parts. Part one, you kill your mentee. You make sure you never want to be in that position again. Part two, they take away the opportunity."
"Part three?" Wanda asks, and Natasha spares her a glance, trying not to read into the expression on her face. It could be disgust, sure. Or it could be awe. Or fear. Or just boredom.
"Part three," Natasha laughs, her whole body aching. "Is the work. The killing and the stealing and the torture. It really is easier, you know. When they take away your trust in yourself, when they show you what you can do. It's easier to do what they say."
She smiles, ignoring the shiver that she can see work its way through Wanda. "Part three is the fun part."
Wanda's lip is quivering, her demeanor threatening to crack. Good, Natasha thinks. Now she knows better.
"What was her name?" Wanda asks.
The question pulls Natasha up short. "What?"
"This girl, the one who you killed. What was her name?" Wanda's voice is shaking like her lip, a tremble that makes Natasha wish she had never spoken.
"I--" Natasha closes her eyes, lying back against the pillows. "Lenka."
Wanda takes a slow step towards Natasha's bed-- Natasha doesn't see it, but the air moves, and her senses don't allow her to miss such things. "I am not Lenka," Wanda says, her voice heavy with tears as she rests her fingers on the back of Natasha's hand. "And you will not kill me."
The quinjet slices through the air, gliding down in a field that Natasha knows very well.
"You're sure this is okay?" Wanda asks, glancing around through the windshield. "For me to be here?"
"They want you here," Natasha says, smiling at her friend as she finishes the landing sequence, putting the jet softly to bed in the sea of wildflowers. "Laura asked to meet you."
Wanda doesn't reply, just grabs their bags from the back and follows Natasha off of the plane, into the clearing.
The hike to the house isn't long-- sometimes it feels that way, sure, like the day Natasha and Wanda met and Clint helped her up the path with memory still echoing through her head. Still, Wanda dawdles, takes the time to gape at little things, stops to watch a bird on a branch as it sings a warning and alights.
"It's beautiful," she says. "It reminds me of-- home."
"Me too," Natasha tells her.
They finish the walk in silence, emerging from the trees and making their way to the porch.
"The oldest is Cooper," Wanda says, looking to Natasha for confirmation. "Then Lila, and Nathaniel?"
Natasha nods and pushes open the door.
The Barton house is always a sunny mess-- Laura, for all her charms, is a bit of a collector of kitsch. Natasha doesn't understand the dried flowers and the silhouettes, the cloying porcelain dolls in cutesy positions and the license plates from places she's never been. It's all tasteful, in its way, but Natasha has never felt the compulsion to collect things that can be so easily broken, or taken away, to make a space so nakedly personal that anyone walking in could know her at a glance.
"Honey!" Natasha calls, opening the door. "Company!"
Clint appears from further back in the house, a baby strapped to his chest. "Hey," he grins, kissing Natasha on the cheek before pulling Wanda into half of a hug. "Hi."
"Hi," Wanda offers, ducking behind the curtain of her hair.
Natasha rolls her eyes at the shyness, steering Wanda to a couch before heading into the kitchen, where she sets a kettle on the stove for tea. The table is a mess of feathers and dowels, which is about what she expects from one of Clint's arrow adventures. She thinks Nathaniel is probably lucky he doesn't have anything stuck to him.
"Laura took Coop and Liles out to town," Clint says, sitting in the armchair. "How was the trip?"
"Trip was good," Wanda offers, finally glancing around. "Is that--"
Clint nods, gently lifting his son from the odd strip of fabric that had been holding them together. "This is Nat. We were fletching some arrows."
Natasha leans on the counter, watching the moment through the inexplicable beaded curtain.
Wanda takes the baby gently, like she might break him, and Clint smiles, moving her hands so she's holding him right, supporting the head and all the other things Natasha learned how to do when Cooper was born.
The baby sleeps through it, but in Natasha's experience, sleeping is the thing babies are best at.
The moment hangs, quiet and peaceful, before Nathaniel opens his eyes and yawns before smiling up at Wanda with clear blue eyes. She smiles back at him, the joy on her face stirring something in Natasha's chest.
"He's a nice baby," Wanda offers.
"Yeah," Clint grins, wiping a bit of invisible nothing from his son's cheek. "I kinda like him. Think we might keep him."
"Did you name him for Natasha?"
The kettle sings as Clint nods. Natasha pulls it from the stove, moving to make tea for her and Wanda, and coffee for Clint. "Yeah. We used up family names on the first two-- Cooper Bernard and Lila Edith. And we were gonna call him Natasha Maria if he was a girl, or Nathaniel Nicholas if he was a boy."
Wanda looks at the sleeping baby in her arms before offering him back to Clint. "Nathaniel Nicholas," she says. "Is a strong name."
"Thanks," Clint says, nodding at Natasha as she lays the mugs on the coffee table and joins Wanda on the couch. Clint takes his son back and slips him into the weird fabric carrier. "But we changed the middle name. He's actually Nathaniel Pietro."
Natasha shifts, watching Wanda's face as the words hit, the half smile that fades into pain and then back into a smile, like the emotions that are surging through her are too much, too hard to contain. Her hands glow for a moment, which causes Clint to stiffen, his arms curled protectively around his son.
"Why?" Wanda whispers.
"Cause he saved my life," Clint says, sadly. "And because I didn't see it coming."
Wanda is crying, Natasha realizes, silent tears slipping down her nose and falling into her lap. "Can I?" she asks, reaching towards the baby again.
Very slowly, Clint uncurls his arms and lets Wanda reach out to touch the soft, wispy baby hair on Nathaniel's temple. Her fingers glow again for a moment, and she makes a noise that Natasha can't understand.
"Oh," Wanda sighs, looking at Clint with her eyes wide. "Oh, he's so happy."
Laura and the kids return before the three of them can finish their tea. Of course, Cooper and Lila immediately drag Wanda and Natasha of a full tour of the farm, insisting on showing rooms and toys and other assorted detritus of living.
Then there's dinner, and some homework to do, and Natasha has to read Lila at least three books before she's allowed to send in Clint for the Bedtime Song. It's all very homey and safe, all familiar and good.
Wanda is sitting on the steps of the porch, one of the oddly colored, lumpy blankets that Laura accrues wrapped around her shoulders to ward off the cool night air.
"How you holding up?" Natasha asks, sitting next to her.
Wanda doesn't say anything, just lifts an arm so Natasha can take some of the blanket.
The cicadas are loud in the trees, and somewhere a bullfrog makes a noise like a motor that won't start.
"He isn't my brother," Wanda says.
"No," Natasha agrees. "But would you want him to be?"
Wanda curls her feet under herself and leans into Natasha's side. "No," she whispers.
A breeze picks up, causing the dark silhouettes of trees to dance against the sky, and Natasha lets herself pull Wanda close, trying to protect her from the monsters that are already in both of their heads.
"It's a lot," Wanda says. "He didn't have to do it."
"That's Clint," Natasha says. "He never has to. He just wants to."
"Like you."
Natasha snorts, the words odd in her ears. She does what she has to, no want about it.
"No," Wanda sits up and turns, her eyes earnest in the porch light. "You don't have to do any of this. You say-- you say you owe. That you have to make things right. You saved the world. Twice. You don't owe."
"I do," Natasha says. "I do. I owe for Faina and Lenka. I owe for the people I hurt. I can save everyone. I can save the world over and over. But I can't undo what I did."
The bullfrog song upsets the night air, and it unnerves Natasha how otherworldly the sound is, how loud and odd. She hasn't had thoughts like that for a long time, since Clint first brought her here and she would spend nights sitting in a window, watching for enemies and listening to the different noises of the countryside.
"They don't swing fists when the fight is over," Wanda whispers. "Papa would tell that to Pietro. And to you. Did you have that one?"
"No," Natasha says. "We never stopped fighting. We weren't allowed."
"You can," Wanda says, wrapping her arms around Natasha and pulling her into a hug. "For a little while, okay? You can stop swinging your fists."
There is a certain uneasiness to the world when Steve and Sam go on their walkabouts, when Natasha is left in charge of Wanda and Rhodey and Vision. She doesn't know quite as much as Steve does about building a team, but she thinks she's learning, she thinks maybe she's getting better.
There is something unknown lurking, and it could be the Winter Soldier or it could be Natasha or it could be the men in dark rooms, making decisions about who to blame. It could be the ghosts in her head or the ones that walk the earth, waiting to be found.
There is a growing peace in her heart, and there are nights when she and Wanda can sit and talk in Sokovian or Russian, talk in aphorisms and proverbs. There are days when they cook together, or go on walks, when Natasha shows Wanda a new move or a poison or a book, and days when Wanda shows Natasha a memory, lends her some calm.
And there is a serenity in the fragile world she builds. She is an Avenger and it isn't a dream. She is a person and she is complete. She is a fighter and she can lay down arms.
Whatever comes, whatever is waiting and growing, within her or without, Natasha thinks she might be ready for it. She might be prepared. She might even be victorious.
But she will not be alone.