Chapter Text
“So, it starts with this kid, this huge, scary kid—” Clint started, just like he always started the story.
“Who was neither very huge nor scary,” Natasha laughed.
It was by far the most disgusting in his arsenal, and therefore his favorite to tell with the tougher kids and new staff members. Almost like some sick initiation. They were sitting at a picnic table outside B door. Natasha could feel the sun freckling the back of her neck as she smiled at the pavement. The newest staff member—her old classmate, Steve—was hovering near the door, uncertain if he was welcome in their little circle, until James tempted him closer with a Coke and an easy grin.
She tried to ignore how James’s shoulder brushed against hers as he reached out the drink. His skin was warm and slightly sticky. Clint went on: “He was kind of a problem kid. I’m not saying he was a bad kid, just screwed up, meth-head parents, you know? Anyway, you know we aren’t allowed to touch kids off the grounds?”
Clint looked at Steve, who shifted like a kid who hadn’t expected to be called on in class. “Yeah, I know,” he nodded. “It’s—the law, now. Because they’re underage. As long as they’re under our jurisdiction here we can restrain them, but as soon as they leave the property they leave our jurisdiction.” He looked around for confirmation. James nodded with a thumbs-up. The Story continued.
“So the kid, he takes off, right?” he went on. "They all try to take off at some point or another. But he gets off the grounds before I can catch him, the guy’s fast! But we’re encouraged to, you know, follow them, try to talk ‘em into coming back and cooling off for a while. So I followed him all the way to fuckin’ Brooklyn Park. But earlier in the day…”
He rounded on Natasha, who stifled another laugh and looked determinedly at the peeling paint on the side of the building.
“Earlier in the day, someone convinced me to eat a fuck-ton of Armenian food for lunch, and Armenian food apparently gives me the shits like nobody’s business. I had no idea, never had the stuff before, but it was rough. I follow this kid onto the subway, and this is when things start to get hairy…”
Natasha knew this story like the back of her hand, smiling faintly and looking away until the roar of laughter signaled that Clint got to the part where he shit himself on the subway. James and Sam looked ready to shit in their own right, while Steve was blushing crimson and chuckling under his breath. “So—you got him to come back though, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, I got him back,” nodded Clint, thumbing amused tears from his eyes. “Under the arrangement that he could tell whoever he damn pleased that I was so scared of getting my ass beat I shit myself. It’s a legend passed down through the halls of this fine establishment. Think it even got back to my fosters. I don’t mind; makes the kids underestimate me.”
Before she had a chance to cut in with her own side of the story, "Okay, first of all—" the facility alarms started blaring and they all shot out of their spots around the picnic table. The nearest door sprang open and out tumbled a scrawny, curly haired boy wearing nothing but a pair of blue boxer briefs, making a break for the boundary and screaming at the top of his lungs. Natasha was bounding after him before her brain even had a chance to process the sight. “Lee!”
“Don’t let him off the grounds!” barked Sam as they shot after him. The boy was small and not very fast, so it didn’t take long before Natasha and James caught up. They grasped him by the arms and held until his own momentum brought him crashing to the crunchy brown grass. When they went down Natasha's ass hit the ground like the butt of a Slinky, shock rolling up her spine, and all at once she had to swallow a foul mouthful of bile.
Natasha never failed to feel impressed when she watched James wrestle kids down with one arm amputated above the elbow, barely breaking a sweat as he helped contain the squirming teen. “Take a breath and cool off, Lee,” she demanded between careful breaths, no room for negotiation. They had to keep him pinned until he ran out of strength and stopped struggling. It always felt longer than it lasted, especially with Leopold Fitz, who preferred to be called Lee. He’d been with them for two months and already threw four temper tantrums like this before. Glued to his best friend and his toys, the boy would never really escape, but when something set him off he was off like a rocket. It was almost like a game to him. He was strong enough to break her arm and get the hell out of Dodge whenever he got too worked up; even then Natasha felt his muscles tensing, ready to spring free.
“Come on, Lee,” she repeated. “Let’s go inside and talk.”
After another few seconds the boy slumped and nodded in defeat. He stood up of his own will and walked back to the building, head hanging low with shame. James slung his good arm over Lee’s shoulders.
“It’s okay, kid,” Natasha heard him murmur as they returned to the building. “Happens to the best of us.”
Clint helped her up off the dry itchy ground. “You okay? Looking a little green there, Red.” He wasn’t wrong. When she landed on the grass it was like stepping on a jar of Play-Doh, but with her breakfast shooting out the opening instead of crusty clay. She swallowed hard and nodded. This had been happening all week and Natasha almost definitely knew why, but didn’t dare say a word to anyone until she was certain.
Inside the facility Lee was already settled with James in the cool-down room. Things seemed to be going okay without her, so Natasha took Steve by the arm to show him around. “That happens sometimes,” she warned him. “You probably remember. There are a lot of unstable kids here, abused kids; a day when we only have Lee to worry about is a good one. This is the staff room. We hang out and drink too much coffee in here. That door should only be for staff. The cool-down room is through here and should only be used for big meltdowns, not Raina pulling a fit because she didn't get enough tater tots. There’s the dining room through there, and beyond that is the kitchen—door’s supposed to be locked at all times when we aren’t cooking. We do Costco runs every other Monday.”
From the staff room they went to the east wing of the building. “This is the rec room, where we do community meetings and game time. Afternoon group’s at four, before chores at five.”
“Group,” echoed Steve, frowning. “They do group therapy here now?”
Natasha made a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat. “Technically, no, it’s just everyone getting together and talking about things. Our role here isn’t to be these kids’ therapists or parents, no matter how much you might get attached and want to help. We aren’t professionals, we don’t have any kinds of degrees, right? So we don’t want to say the wrong thing. They have their own personal therapists for that, and a social worker comes every month to make sure things are running smooth. Our job is to create a safe environment and make sure the kids don’t kill each other or themselves. And I wish that were a joke.”
Her voice was slow and soft, catching slightly in her throat where she still felt the burn of bile. The last thing she wanted was for one of the kids to hear her talking about them like this. Steve was nodding to show he understood, as she knew he would. Even as a boy within these very walls, Steve had always been far more perceptive than the adults in charge of him. It took less than two weeks living down the hall as teenagers to know that.
“I know you know all this, Steve, but it’s policy for me to remind you, and some stuff has changed. This isn't an orphanage anymore, it's called a short-term facility, meaning it’s kind of like—a halfway house while kids are transitioning between foster care and going back to their parents, or the other way around. We usually don’t keep them longer than a year, but some have been here for almost three, so it’s not a perfect system. Right now we have Mike, Jemma, Lee, Grant, Miles, Raina, Trip, Kamala, and a new arrival coming in this afternoon, Mary Sue. That’s a lot of unhappy kids to keep an eye on and you have to always have an eye on them.
“The boys and girls are a hallway apart, but in the same wing so we can check on everyone at once in case of emergencies.” She nodded to each corridor in turn. “Boys on the left, girls on the right. We do stickers on everyone’s door now, signifying their current—state. Self-harmers have to keep the door open at all times, EDs have to be accompanied to the bathroom after meals, things like that. Right now we just have Jemma to focus on. She’s our highest risk on-site. 14, and already a recovering anorexic.”
“That’s terrible,” Steve said. His face was the image of devastation.
Natasha shrugged. “That’s the way it is. We keep her door open and I go with her to the bathroom,” she explained. “She has a special diet to help her put on weight without triggering too much food-related stress.”
Speaking of food, even though she just had breakfast before riding in to hear the Story, she was starving. As soon as the tour was over she sent Steve off to finish his paperwork in the office and read up on all the kids if he so desired, then went back to the break room. She pulled a box of Ritz crackers out of the cupboard just as James and Lee were leaving the cool-down room. Lee gave her the puppy dog eyes until she let him have a cracker, finger to lips to ensure his secrecy before he scurried off to play with the dozens of porcelain monkeys lined up in his room.
“How’d it go?” she murmured, breathing in the smell of James’s aftershave when he leaned in to take a cracker.
Treat crammed between his teeth, he put his hand on her hip. “Abut s’good s’ever,” he replied around crumbs. James swallowed hard and grinned. His breath was salty. “You know Lee. He’s a good kid, he just gets mixed up. He’s a really good kid.”
“I know he is.”
“I know you know, I just—feel bad.”
The box sat abandoned on the counter so she could put both hands on his shoulders. His smile was small. She brushed a strand of hair from his cheek with a thumb. “You like him and he’s a good boy. We’re doing everything we can for him. Why else you think I let him steal snacks?” When he nodded glumly she kissed the dip in his chin, the highest she could reach without going up on her toes. It made him smile before pressing a kiss to her hair in return. He shuffled forward until her back was against the counter’s edge and he was slotted neatly between her knees.
“We really gotta stop meeting like this, gorgeous, or the kids’ll catch on,” he breathed into her hair, trailing a line of firm, present kisses down to her ear. There was nothing sexual in it, only warm comfort. “I love you.”
Natasha’s heart lodged itself in her throat. His voice was so soft she almost didn’t hear him. She worked her fingers into his hair, scratching his scalp the way she knew he liked. “We’d better get back before they notice we’re gone,” she told him, nudging his chin with her nose. With a last kiss to his collar bone she gently pushed him away so she could slide free. “Besides, the new girl’s gonna be here soon and I have to process her in.”
Were it more of an imperfect world, those brief exchanges in the kitchen might have been all they ever had, but Natasha knew better. After work she would go home to find James in the kitchen, scowling at the broken stove timer and cussing in Russian. She smiled to herself, holding onto the image to keep herself afloat.
The new girl was waiting for her in the office when Natasha arrived. She was almost 16, with hair midway down her torso in loose chestnut curls, golden brown skin, and dark eyes glued to her phone. “Mary Sue Poots?” asked Natasha.
“No,” replied the girl. “That is the stupidest name in the universe. It’s Skye.”
Oh, thank god. That really was an unfortunate name, and Natasha was certain the other kids would tease her about it. “Skye, then.” She made a note on Skye’s file. “Welcome to Short Term Shield. I just have to look through your bag before I show you to your room.”
She confiscated a pair of scissors, but before she could explain that Skye would get them back the girl let out a sigh. “I know,” she said flatly. “I can check them out from the cupboard in the office. No belts, no shoelaces, no closed doors, no fucking freedom.”
“And no cussing.”
“Oh, shit, I forgot that one.”
The corner of Natasha’s mouth curled up against her will. “I’ll let that slide because it was clever, but only this once. Come on, let’s go to your room now.”
She carried Skye’s bag for her down the hall to the dorms, and placed it on her bed. “You can put anything on the walls that’s appropriate,” she warned.
“So no pictures of penises?” retorted Skye.
Natasha smirked over her shoulder as she unlocked the closet door. “Not unless they’re very scientific.”
Skye was very quiet—then again, Natasha was quiet too. She understood how much weight the gaps between words could hold. Everything she had to say, wanted to say, knew she really should say, balled together all at once and formed a knot in her throat more often than not, leaving just enough room to breathe and make small agreeable sounds, pushing out a few words at a time to lessen the pressure until new ones took shape. People could talk and talk and never say a word about themselves, but the things they did in silence was damning. Skye was scribbling in a notebook, her eyes flickering between the pages and watching Natasha.
"Can I see what you're drawing?" asked Natasha.
She hugged the book. "I'm not drawing, I'm writing, and it's private." Skye set her jaw as if expecting a fight, but Natasha conceded with a nod.
"I'll let you settle in. Dinner's at five. I have to leave the door open."
"I don't do that anymore."
“Yeah?" she asked, clearly unconvinced.
"And even if I did, leaving the door open two fucking inches wouldn't stop me."
"What did I say about cussing? That's a minus-point this time."
For the briefest instant the girl's eyes flickered, like she was surprised Natasha followed through. Then she visibly reigned herself in and forced a bored expression. “Oh, no. A minus-point. What am I gonna do?"
Natasha set her with a steely look. "Your attitude isn't helping either of us," she sternly said, then left to join the other kids in the rec room. They were watching some anime cartoon she had never heard of, so she sat with Jemma and braided her hair in the Dutch fashion.
"Like Katniss?" the girl asked meekly. Natasha hummed in confirmation. It was Jemma's favorite but she couldn't quite manage the backward mechanics of it, so she always put on a great show of trying and messing it up in front of Natasha before begging for help.
I remember this, she thought faintly as she tied off the plait with a band from her own wrist. Mama would tie her hair in two long braids that ran all the way down to her waist and snapped like whips in a sharp wind. Natasha cut it all off, after the Leshy. Mostly she remembered the tug of fingers in her curls. It never hurt. Mama was good at that.
So why can't I remember her face?
Because she had behaved so well all week, not a single escape attempt and she hadn’t started up her Monopoly casino again, Natasha turned to Raina for community meeting. "Will you be secretary today?" she asked.
Raina went as red as the flowers on her dress and nodded. Someone (probably Kamala) had put dandelions in her hair. She took the clipboard and pen and called, "Community meeting is now in session!" with authority giving her cheeks a healthy glow. "Community announcements?"
Silence.
"No announcements?" Raina asked. Her voice colored with annoyance that no one was jumping for her, until James raised his hand. Then she blushed anew because all the girls thought Bucky (the name he went by to everyone but Natasha, who met him when they were both still just lonely James and angry, sad Natalia) looked like a vampire.
Which was apparently a compliment now.
"Guys, it's come to my attention that it's Grant's birthday later this week," he grinned slowly.
(That had changed since he and Natasha met, too. He was a smooth-talker, running his mouth while getting straight A’s, to the confusion of teachers and classmates alike. A social butterfly ostracizing himself to take care of younger kids who were being bullied. He became more thoughtful when he came back from Iraq with half an arm blown off.)
Grant blushed crimson and stared down at his knees. "Doesn't matter," he mumbled.
"Of course it does, it's your last birthday with us," insisted Clint from across the room. "What d'you wanna do, man?"
For a very long and tense few moments the young man thought, brow deeply furrowed behind his shaggy hair. "Can I get a tattoo?" he asked.
Behind his back Natasha furiously shook her head. Absolutely not. It would be a bureaucratic nightmare.
"Anything but that, Grant," replied James apologetically.
Another half-minute, then:
"Can I cut my hair?"
Natasha, Clint, and James exchanged looks over his head. Steve was hiding on the outskirts of the room, not knowing what to make of these proceedings.
"We—really just meant food, Grant."
"I don't want food, I wanna cut my hair."
James shrugged helplessly, gesturing to Natasha. Your call.
"As long as I'm holding the scissors," she conceded. Even if he didn't smile, Grant looked satisfied. "So, everyone: food ideas for Grant's birthday?"
They all started to talk at once. A headache formed somewhere in the region behind Natasha's left eye.
When the night shift had all arrived and settled in for the evening to make dinner, Natasha found Skye in her room and knocked twice before entering. “Hey.”
“What?” growled Skye, scribbling in her little book again. It definitely didn’t look like writing from the door.
“I’m heading out for the night.”
“Thanks for the news flash. I’ll stay tuned for more as the story develops.”
She rolled her eyes. “I just wanted to make sure you know, I told the staff you prefer being called Skye. You won’t hear the name Mary Sue Poots unless you want to—or someone makes a mistake, I guess.”
“Good to know,” Skye snorted. “Can you go now?”
The question was barely out of her mouth before Natasha was out the door. She knew when she wasn’t wanted and wasn’t going to push her luck with a girl this hostile. Pushing the wrong buttons meant meltdowns or escape attempts and neither were favorable. Natasha was familiar with that kind of stress, the terror of not knowing where her triggers were coming from, and would rather not force that on someone else. Back and hips aching, she left the facility. More than anything she wanted to go home and take a bath, but there was something else she had to do first.
Steve was talking with Clint just off the sidewalk. "So what happened with the kid who made you shit yourself?" he asked, all innocence as he and Clint both fiddled with their hearing aids.
And, because Natasha knew him well enough to know he would lie through his teeth, she interrupted. "Ian?" She shrugged. "He ran away again, and two days later they found him dead in the bushes."
"What?!"
“Yeah. That's how the story ends."
"I—don't like that part," muttered Clint, rubbing the back of his neck so he didn't have to look at them. Steve walked off shaking his head in stunned disbelief. Things had changed drastically since she and Steve lived in the facility. It had been two sashays from a run-of-the-mill orphanage in their heyday and now it was a halfway house for life-or-death cases more often than not.
Then again, her case had felt like it was life or death sometimes. A lot of times.
"Need a ride?" called James, throwing his backpack into the Forrester while she unlocked her bike.
"Nah," she replied, smiling over her shoulder. "Gonna clear my head."
The spokes and gears gently ticked as she coasted down the hill away from the facility, sighing in relief when the wind caught in her hair. Sometimes she felt like an old woman after days like these, desperate just to go home and put on her pajamas. She was 24 years old. This was supposed to be the most exciting time in a person's life, and there she was: only seeing sunlight during rec time and on the commute. It felt good to stretch her legs a little more than walking around campus or running after attempted AWOLs. Feel the sun on her face, waking up with a few more freckles than the day before.
There was no joy in riding today. All Natasha felt was the ball of anxiety forming in the pit of her stomach. The sweat misting under her arms and breasts ran cold. Stars danced around the edges of her eyes. By the time she turned into the clinic parking lot Natasha was certain she was going to vomit in the bushes. Then she climbed off her bike and did vomit in the bushes.
The sooner she got this over with, the better.
---
"—so, the results are pretty clear," the specialist said once Natasha was seated across her desk. "How are you feeling?"
The moment she heard the words come out the other woman's mouth it was like Natasha's plug was pulled and she deflated. The knot was forming in her throat, all the way down to her chest and her belly. "Can't say I'm surprised," she forced out, brows drawing together. "I took probably five home tests before I did the blood draw last week, so."
The thumb on her right hand started to burn and itch, a compartmentalizations of what she was really feeling, according to her therapist from six years ago. It was powerful, all-consuming; Natasha could have fought the sensation if she weren't reeling in shock. Her index finger twitched twice, then started to scratch and pick at the troublesome cuticle. If she could just get rid of that little bit of dry skin clinging on, her head would clear and everything would be okay. It would stop burning and she could focus, she could figure out what to do—but what was there to do? Keep it? She could barely keep her own life in line, let alone a whole other person.
"This is a big shock, clearly," the older woman said. She was completely and unrestrainedly earnest in the lines around her eyes. "But I want you to know, Natasha, there are options we—"
"No," interrupted Natasha. The single syllable burned up her throat like bile.
"No? No, you don't want to hear your options?"
“I—just want to make an appointment. For Monday."
"...okay. I'll check when I have an open time slot. Have you ever been pregnant before?"
Stop crying! Look at the camera, Matryoshka, and open your mouth. Good girl. Good girl.
"N—hm." Oh, god, her head hurt so much. "Once."
Dark sad eyes watched her fidget across the desk. "Okay." A warm hand covered hers. "Okay."
---
Natasha couldn't go home after, not in the state she was in. She rode circles around the park, resistance all the way up as she cranked her way up hills then coasted down with eyes closed. Wind tossed her hair around like a million tiny whips and chains and lengths of silken ribbon licking her cheeks and neck.
She couldn't remember who taught her to ride. Her father, or maybe her old guardian Ivan Petrovitch, it didn't matter. What mattered was she could. It was the closest to flying a person could get without leaving the ground. It was freedom. It was her own muscle, her own sweat, powering a machine that could travel 10 times faster than a man. When she pumped her legs as hard and fast as she could then hit the crest at the top of a hill she screwed her eyes shut and imagined she was a shooting star, streaking across the sky for all the Western Hemisphere to see.
And Natasha knew, deep down, that someday she would hit a lucky streak. She would reach terminal velocity and burn up in the atmosphere, a briefly vivid blink of light.
---
"You were gone a while."
"It smells good in here."
"Had some time to myself. Decided to make Baba's pirozhki."
His pronunciation, like the shape of his forearm as he rolled dough one-handed, was perfect. "Looks like there's enough for two," Natasha commented lightly, peering over his shoulder. Vegetables too, the frozen kind with cheese that she liked so much.
"Oh, yeah? I didn't notice. I am, though, starting to wonder if you're having an affair. With your bike.”
"Leave Liho out of this," she teased, kissing the back of his good shoulder. "I'm gonna shower. I'm all sweaty from riding his comfy seat too hard."
He snapped a dish towel at her butt as she jumped out of reach. "You named your bike after Pure Evil! Liho can suck my dick!" he called indignantly then turned away, grumbling. "Fuckin' Liho. Show you a comfy seat, motherfucker.”
As soon as she was out of eyeshot Natasha's smile fell away and the weary heaviness returned to her limbs. God, she was tired. She pushed herself too hard this week in some twisted denial that everything was the same, that everything was normal. If she pretended long enough that she wasn't pregnant, maybe it would go away. Maybe it would all turn out to be a bad dream.
She sat in the bottom of the bath tub as the shower ran, scalding, down her back, dripping from the ends of her hair, running in the grooves between scars on her legs. Some of them were faded, but most still vivid enough to name the when, where, and why. Most had something to do with the Leshy. Others were his special friends, or bad dreams about fire or Mama screaming her name. Only a few had to do with someone from the Now. After James went to Iraq, things got hard for a while, but Natasha made herself promise she would only do it once because James would be so hurt if he knew it was indirectly his fault. She did it four more times before actually stopping.
That was six years ago. Just when his first tour was about to end he came home half an arm short and looking half dead for his efforts. Natasha hadn't left his side until he was able to leave the hospital. He stayed with Steve for four months, and when the Wounded Warriors Project banded together to build him a house of his own, he asked Natasha to share it with him. She remembered joking that she didn't fit the criteria, but he had gone serious and said, "You may not be wounded, but you're just as much a warrior as me." Over the next week they christened every room of that little house, and over the ensuing years made it into a home.
Maybe a baby was the next logical step in the process. She was certain that they were neither of them conventional enough for marriage, but James had no qualms against openly and happily expressing his desire to spend the rest of his life with her.
Maybe we could, she thought, finally standing and scrubbing herself clean. Maybe it will mean I finally won.
Dinner was a quiet affair, which she blamed on tiredness and only lied halfway. Yes, Natasha was exhausted from her bike ride and the irritating early pregnancy symptoms, but she was thinking too hard to offer much by way of productive conversation. James didn't mind. He just leaned against her side on the couch and picked veggies off her plate. Insufferable man.
To make up for her silence she offered a game of Story Time, which she invented when they were kids. They had 60 seconds to write a short story about each other and whoever came up with the best one was the winner. Natasha almost always won, unless she showed mercy or was having a bad day. The timer started and they both started to scribble, every so often glancing up at each other or into space as they thought. The minute always felt shorter than it ought, especially when James kept tickling her with his toes across the length of the sofa.
"Time!" she called, but he kept scribbling.
She jabbed him with her foot and he howled indignantly. "Okay, okay, just read yours first," he grumbled, which meant he would be trying to make adjustments while she did so, but Natasha indulged him. She fumbled with the notebook in her hands for second, embarrassed.
"Once upon another time, there was a handsome man
His hair was cut all crooked and his eyes were very sad
He thought that he was broken, because he went to war
But his girlfriend told him, 'that's what friends are for.
I will be your arms if you will be my heart,
We'll run away together and make our own stars.'"
Looking up, Natasha felt color blossom up her neck at the expression James's face. "The rhyming was pretty lame, huh?" she asked.
James just shook his head. "How are you so good at that?!" he whined, then threw himself dramatically backward and nearly fell off the couch. "Come on, don't make me do mine, it's like a kindergartener wrote it!"
"Even better," she grinned and prodded him again. "Come oooonnnnnnnn."
"No, it sucks."
"So did mine."
"You really think my hair's crooked?"
"Yes, and it will continue to be as long as you keep cutting it yourself, now stop stalling."
"Just gimme another minute!"
"No way, cheater!"
He sighed heavily, as if his whole world were ending via horrible embarrassment. Then he cleared his throat.
"Once upon a time there was a pretty girl. She was quiet. She tended to think a lot, but she thought so many things that flowers started to grow from her—shit, I can't read my writing—from her head. Everyone thought she was beautiful. Uh...the end."
James looked up at her so sheepishly that Natasha felt like she'd been punched in the gut. "Why are you so nice to me?" she asked, dumbstruck.
He blinked. "Are we being serious now?"
She nodded, too stunned to speak.
“Because,” he shrugged. “You're the weirdest, smartest, most beautiful person I've ever met. I gotta keep you on my side, doll."
"I'll never not be on your side, James."
Leaning across the space between them, Natasha kissed him hard and he drew back in surprise. "Is this happening?" he asked warily. "Because you haven't kissed me like that in a while and I don't wanna presume."
Natasha frowned. “A while? How long?”
“It’s been like a week since we last had sex, Nata.”
Nata. His special nickname for when he felt anxious or like he was overstepping his bounds. Natasha’s frown deepened and she closed a hand around his shoulder, squeezing, trying to find solid ground when it felt suddenly like she was on a boat in choppy waters. It was no coincidence that she had submitted her blood for testing at the clinic a week ago. She never meant to take all this out on James. All the damage the Leshy had done was still causing aftershocks nearly 10 years later, ruining her relationship with one of the only people in her life that really mattered.
The hand on his shoulder started to twitch, and suddenly her index finger was gently scratching away at the seam in his shirt. Anything to distract her mind from thoughts of the Leshy. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. The knot in her throat was growing big and hot.
“No, no!” James gathered her into a hug, his hand a firm and comforting presence at the nape of her neck. “Hey, Nata, stop that, you don’t have anything to apologize for. The second I start making demands, you get to pull my dick off with your teeth. Remember? You remember that? How old were we when I made you that promise, 16?"
Startled into laughter at the vulgarity of their youth, Natasha lay her head on James's shoulder. "I remember. That's a big promise for a needy guy like you." The knot had loosened somewhat—for now.
For a long time they stayed that way, the only change that James adjusted his hold so he could comb his fingers through her hair. It was still damp from her shower, oily with conditioner, but he didn't seem to mind.
He kissed the crown of her head and whispered that he loved her, and somewhere deep in her heart she said I love you right back.
They cleaned up their dishes in silence. Natasha knew the worried concentration furrowing James's brow meant by now. He was wondering why, after knowing each other nine years, she still didn't trust him. It made her both sad and enraged that he would think she did anything but trust him explicitly; it had nothing to do with him and everything to do with her being weak and haunted and so, so stupid. At least with her hands submerged in soapy water she couldn't pick at her cuticles easily.
"You want I should sleep on the couch tonight?" James asked while they were brushing their teeth side by side at the bathroom sink.
Natasha looked up at him with toothpaste dribbling down her chin. "Why would I want that?" she frowned.
He shook his head and rinsed. "Just checking."
With him curled against her back, Natasha felt safe as she fell asleep.