Natasha cuffs herself to the bed when the nightmares start to sting.
It's habit, toxic and soothing. Her wrist always aches the morning after, chafed and bruised against the delicate bone. She wears long sleeves and keeps her hands out of sight, but her skin still feels itchy and raw, and she knows. She knows.
In her dreams Natasha hears screaming and Budapest and a river of blood. She sees the people she couldn't save, and the people she could, at a cost. Above all she sees red, red, red, red, red.
After Sokovia, the dreams start coming fast and thick. Natasha's wrist is bruised black, and she wears a hoodie that covers her to her fingertips every day. It's not that she's ashamed, exactly. But she'd rather hide than face Sam's gentle pity, Steve's hot headed concern.
Wanda finds her anyway.
"You are troubled," she says, accented and blunt. If Natasha were somebody else, she might have flinched. Wanda unnerves her. Wanda unravelled her mind with half a breath.
"I'm peachy," says Natasha, and Wanda frowns.
"You are not," she replies. "I can sense it. Discordance rolls off you in waves."
Natasha knows that Wanda can't help it, that her powers can be volatile and strange, but she's still irritated. Natasha is a private person. She likes to spill her emotions on her own rare terms. "Back off," she tells Wanda, and there's sharp warning in her tone.
Wanda doesn't back off. Wanda advances, until they're face to face, and cuts to the heart without preamble. "What I did to you is inexcusable," she murmurs. "I would like to help."
Natasha stands her ground. "I don't need saving, Wanda."
"We all need saving sometimes," Wanda shrugs.
Natasha is adamant that she does not. She takes care of herself, the itsy bitsy spider dodging fat drops of rain. She doesn't like to ask for help. It's too close to being vulnerable, and that usually ends with her getting shot.
She trusts her allies – well, she trusts Maria, and Sam, and Steve, and Clint, and a scattered other few. She trusts them with her life, but that's not the same as asking them to hold onto it.
It's absolutely not the same as asking Wanda. Natasha accepts and sometimes even likes Wanda. She's wary of trusting her. It was Wanda's uncanny power that cracked her mind open, after all.
And yet… there's a double edge to that power. Wanda is the only one who knows, truly knows, what haunts Natasha into the night. She's seen it. That makes Natasha want to shudder, but it also forges an eerie kinship. And when Natasha looks at Wanda's face, there's an open, obvious thirst for redemption that shadows her features. Natasha knows, because she's been taught to recognize emotional cracks in others and split them. And she knows because she's certain that same parched need is reflected far in the back of her own eyes. And in knowing that, a tiny part of Natasha's heart has opened to Wanda. A tiny part is grateful that Wanda understands.
It feels like a plunge that Natasha is not ready to take. "I do fine on my own," she tells Wanda, and then she walks away.
Natasha feels Wanda's eyes on her as she escapes. The space between her shoulder blades tingles. She walks away feeling beaten. Natasha is good at figuring people out quickly. She's made her name on that. Wanda still mostly eludes Natasha, and whether that's because of power, natural canniness, or… something else, she can't puzzle out.
Natasha is self aware enough to realize that she thinks about her an awful lot. And she knows it's not all nerves because frankly, Natasha doesn't have that many nerves. Wanda leaves Natasha off balance, plain and simple. Though she offers Natasha help, Natasha recoils, and she thinks that it might be because she fears letting Wanda in will cause her to topple like a broken toy.
She's tired of circling thoughts and yearning and residual nightmares colliding in her head. She's tired of wondering if Wanda could really help her, only to swallow her heart when it leaps into her throat. She's tired, and she's wound up, so she whips out her phone and texts Maria Hill.
Natasha is lucky, and Maria is nearby. She's been 'around' a lot more lately. Natasha wonders if she should make something of that, but she leaves it for now because she's grateful that Maria is available on short notice. They meet fifteen minutes later, at one of the empty gun ranges. Maria says hi, Natasha says hi, and then they gear up and start shooting. Relief washes over Natasha as she falls into the wordless rhythm of target practice. She empties her clip, reloads, and empties it again. With each cacophonous gunshot blast, Natasha feels some of her tension ease. After finishing the second clip, she pauses, rolls her neck on her shoulders and hears it crack. Natasha looks sidelong at Maria, and finds that Maria is already staring back at her.
"What?" Natasha slides her noise cancelling headphones off of her head and lets them drape loosely around her neck.
Maria copies suit and clicks the safety on her gun. "What's going on?" she asks.
Natasha shrugs. "Nothing," she says hastily. "I just needed to blow off some steam."
"Uh huh." Maria doesn't look convinced. "You couldn't do that alone?"
"Everything is more fun with a partner," Natasha jokes, smirking. Maria just raises an eyebrow. Another beat, and Natasha sighs and leans against the wall. She does have a lot on her mind. She likes seeing Maria at times like this, because Maria is one of the only people Natasha can really talk to with the option to abruptly cut off, which she sometimes likes to do. It's an understanding camaraderie that comes from being someone who keeps a lot of secrets of her own.
Today, Natasha realizes that she would like to talk after all. She lets out a long breath. "I'm having difficulty trusting someone," she admits.
"You have difficulty trusting everybody," Maria points out.
That makes Natasha laugh. "You're not wrong," she says dryly. "But this is different. It's someone I probably need to trust, at least a little. And it's someone I–" Natasha cuts herself off, and the word want hangs unspoken on the tip of her tongue.
Maria peers at her with curiosity. "Is this about Bruce?" she asks, and Maria is never tentative, but there is the ghost of soft hesitation there.
It's about as near to and as far from the truth as she could get. "Bruce was never what either of us wanted it to be," says Natasha. "He wanted somebody who would run away with him and I…" Natasha winces. "Have you ever gone out with someone because it seemed easy? Like, you figured you might as well?"
Maria looks surprised, but she quickly shrugs it away. "Everyone has," she says. "But that doesn't sound like you, Nat."
Natasha pushes herself up off the wall. "Even I can be trivial," she says, and her tone is light, but her face is sad. "Being who I am, and doing what I do, it's… I don't know. Lonely sometimes. And I thought Bruce seemed a little bit lonely too so I…" Natasha makes a face. "Never mind. It's over, and it was a mistake."
"Why are you telling me about it then?" asks Maria.
For the longest second, Natasha is stumped. Or maybe she's just stubborn. Truthfully, she knows exactly why she opened up to Maria about Bruce. She needed to hear it out loud, because she needed to hear how it sounded against the rocky landscape of her feelings for Wanda. It's not the same. Natasha had pushed towards Bruce because she thought that it would be easy. Nothing about Wanda feels easy. Natasha is drawn to her all the same.
"I needed a question answered," she tells Maria.
"And did you get it?" Maria doesn't prod any deeper. Natasha could kiss her for that.
She runs her hand through her hair, and almost smiles. "I think so."
They turn back to their guns, and Natasha finds strength in the blast of gunfire instead of catharsis this time. She knows what she has to do, for her nightmares, for the sake of her spinning thoughts and feelings. She just needs to work up the nerve to follow through. She thinks that she's almost there.
This time, Natasha finds Wanda. She finds the other girl alone, in a window seat, staring outside listlessly – or maybe she's entranced. "Wanda," says Natasha, and Wanda doesn't react. She tries again, louder, and Wanda jerks and looked startled.
"Sorry," Natasha says. "I didn't mean to interrupt."
Wanda smiles shyly. "You interrupted nothing," she says. "I was lost in thought."
"Deep thoughts?" Natasha asks. She sits next to Wanda in the window seat. It looks casual and fluid, but inside Natasha's body is screaming to gird her loins. When she actually sits, it's easy, and the wash of comfort that brings her boosts Natasha's confidence. The way Wanda can make her feel frightens her, but Wanda… Wanda does not. Wanda is something else entirely.
"I was…" Wanda looks a little bit uncomfortable, and Natasha wants to wince. "I was thinking about my brother," she admits. "He still has not opened his eyes."
"He will," Natasha says automatically, because she knows it's the right thing to say, but also because she knows that it is true. Pietro was under the capable hands of Dr. Cho, and with his boosted metabolism, his cells were already beginning to knit back together. But Natasha can understand that as long as he was still knocked out, Wanda would be on the edge of panic. She feels a sudden twist of guilt for coming to bother Wanda right now, and starts to get up.
Wanda stops her. She reaches out and grabs Natasha's hand, tells her, "Wait." Her grip tightens around Natasha's fingers, and Natasha freezes. Her hand feels good in Wanda's. Her persistent curiosity churns itself to a simmer in her chest that spikes when Wanda peers up at her through her lashes. "Can I help you with something?" Wanda asks.
Natasha lets out a breath she didn't even know she had been holding. "Yes," she says, and feels Wanda draw her down again. "Please."
Please. The word is soft, and Natasha is unused to using soft words outside of subterfuge. But she sees the way it reflects in Wanda's eyes, and it makes Natasha feel giddy.
"What can I do?" Wanda asks, eager and gentle at once.
"I've been having nightmares," Natasha answers slowly. It sounds stupid laid out like that, but she's counting on the fact that Wanda already knows, and from the crease in her brow, Natasha is sure that she is right. "You said you could help."
"I can try," Wanda replies. "I think I can– well, we'll see what I can do." Wanda squeezes Natasha's fingertips. "If I come to you, tonight?" she asks. "I will be strongest when you are asleep."
"Yes," Natasha says again. Wanda drops her hand, and Natasha feels an urge to grab it again, to lace their fingers together and run her calloused thumb over the soft pad of Wanda's palm. "Tonight," Natasha agrees. By her side, her empty hand twitches.
Natasha is expecting her, but Wanda knocks anyway. Natasha answers the door in sweats, and feels awkward. Wanda stands in the doorway, and everything suddenly starts to feel like a therapy session meets a first date, and Natasha isn's sure which prospect makes her more uncomfortable. She smiles anyway, naturally dissembling confidence. "Come on in," she tells Wanda, and steps aside.
Wanda walks into Natasha's room and spins in a slow circle, taking in her surroundings. She stops and is facing Natasha again. "I like what you've done with the place," she says, and since spartan doesn't even begin to describe Natasha's decorating skills, the dry joke is unmissable.
Natasha shuts the door, and Wanda walks to her narrow bed and sinks onto it. Wanda moves with such unaware grace. Natasha fleetingly wonders what she would be like to dance with, and then feels like a child. She follows Wanda and sits down beside her.
"This feels strange," Natasha admits.
"For me as well," Wanda says, which takes Natasha by surprise, although maybe it shouldn't have. "I have never used my powers to heal," Wanda explains. "This is… you are helping me too, Natasha."
It hasn't occurred to Natasha before now that Wanda needs this too. Like Natasha, she needs peace from her monsters. The idea that they can help deliver it to each other – well, it makes Natasha feel stronger. They share vulnerability now, and that makes her less afraid. Natasha leans back on her elbows. Her eyes never leave Wanda's. "Tell me what to do."
Wanda crawls up the bed, and nods for Natasha to follow, and the absurd romance of the motion hits Natasha for a beat. Through another filter, they could be making love. She wriggles up the bed after Wanda anyway, and sits cross legged opposite her.
"You get nightmares?" Wanda asks, and Natasha nods affirmation. "Because of what I pulled out of you." Natasha hesitates, and then nods again. Wanda tilts her head to one side. "I think," she says carefully, "That if I retrace what I did to you in the first place, I can calm your memories, settle them beneath the surface," she explains. "They won't be gone, but they will haunt you less." Wanda makes a rueful face before adding, "I guess in a way I'll still be messing with your head though, so if you don't want this, if you want me to go, I can –"
"No." Natasha cuts Wanda off. What Wanda offers sounds like a balm. Natasha knows that she can never expunge her time in the Red Room without losing fragments of who she is. But to think that Wanda could help it hurt less… that Natasha thinks she would like very much.
"It works best if you're asleep," Wanda says softly. "I can help ease you into that if you need to."
"I'll be fine," Natasha replies. And she will be; she's been through too many nerve-wracking missions, curled up on too much icy or rough terrain, to have not mastered the art of swiftly falling asleep. But there's one ritual she's returned to lately that Natasha is wary of showing anybody, so she balks for a hasty and frightened moment, and then relents with a sigh. "This stays between you and me, okay?" she says and Wanda only raises her eyebrows, like, obviously.
Natasha reaches into her nightstand and takes out the old pair of cuffs. She fastens one cuff around the metal post of her bedstand, and links the other around her wrist. She watches Wanda the entire time. Wanda stays steady and placid, even wise, and Natasha is struck by how much strength Wanda's delicate frame seems to conceal. It coaxes her onto her side, and settles her nerves when Wanda's fingertips brush her temples.
"Sleep," Wanda says, and Natasha can feel herself already lulled into a doze. "Sleep, and dream."
Natasha slips under, and out of consciousness. She dreams.
She is back in Russia. She is back in the Red Room. She trains. She fights her sisters. She cracks their bones and feels their ligaments tear. They scream. She trains.
"Fire, Natalia."
The world bleeds and her gun fires. She is back in the Red Room. She steals bread and is punished. She screams at the crack and the sting of the lash. Another gun fires and the world burns gold.
"Congratulations, Natalia."
Praise only comes on the heels of a kill. She is deadly, and she is broken. She is back in the Red Room, and her tongue feels thick. And she is going under, and she wants to scream. And she is going under, and she feels clammy and panicked. Fire, Natalia. She tastes blood at the back of her tongue. She tastes bile at the back of her throat. She feels her gut churn. Her fingertips crawl, scrambling for the gun. She is going under. She is going under. She is –
Natasha.
Wanda's voice cuts through everything. It's at once a winding red tendril and a sharply bracing wave. Her name is Natasha. Her name is Natasha, and she is back in her own skin. She is – She is –
You're safe, Natasha.
Her name is Natasha and she is back in her own skin. Natasha sinks into this clarity, and feels Wanda's spell weave itself around her like a cradle. Calm envelopes her. The ache in her wrist begins to fade. The constriction on her heart loosens, and she feels herself start to breathe. She draws in sweet air, and the Red Room fades away. She exhales, and it melts into–
– a gilded room. It shimmers like a jewel, and Natasha thinks of the folktales she was told as a very small child. She is surrounded by dancers who move like honeybees, graceful and slow. Natasha realizes that she moves with them, and that she is dancing with a woman whose dark curls are wild and whose eyes glow with a scarlet sheen.
Natasha is dancing with Wanda. She feels it startle them both. Wanda's grip on Natasha falters, and Natasha feels herself jolt awake.
Natasha feels herself jolt awake.
Natasha blinks. She's rolled over in her sleep, and it's twisted her arm painfully behind her back. But it's also brought her face to face with Wanda, who is still in a trancelike state. One of her hands cups Natasha's cheek. The other has strayed to her waist. Like we were dancing, Natasha realizes.
A dozen emotions are rushing through Natasha, echoing confusion and neediness, but most of all swelling relief. Natasha can't pinpoint exactly what is different, but she knows that it is there. Her nightmares haunt her no longer. Natasha lets all this thrum through her, and it rolls her closer to Wanda, and it drives her to press her mouth against Wanda's in a kiss.
Wanda's reaction is rapid, instantaneous: She shudders out of her trance and kisses Natasha back with no hesitation. Her hand snakes from Natasha's waist to the small of her back, and she pulls their bodies flush against one another. She's rewarded by the smothered taste of Natasha's moan.
They're half tangled together before it really hits Natasha. She and Wanda are making out. Seriously, enthusiastically making out. Natasha can feel her shirt riding up around her ribs and Wanda's warm skin pressed up against hers, her leg curving around Natasha's hip.
When they part, it's only for air. Natasha already finds herself wanting to chase Wanda's lips.
"You dreamed we were dancing," Wanda says. She sounds breathless and dazed.
"That wasn't you?" asks Natasha. She's assumed Wanda had conjured the dream, soothing antiseptic to her nightmares.
"I coaxed whatever lay behind the nightmares," Wanda replies. "I thought if I could tap in the id, I could leave you with a kinder dream, something pulled from your desire. And you – oh!"
Wanda's last words are muffled when Natasha crushes their mouths together again. She does desire Wanda. Fiercely, even desperately. Her soul knows it, Wanda knows it, and since Natasha is sick of neutralizing the need, she succumbs to it. She presses her tongue against the seam of Wanda's mouth until Wanda's lips open like a flower and she groans. Their bodies writhe together until Natasha practically feels herself whimpering for more, and she rolls over to uncuff her wrist from the bedpost.
Before she can undo the lock, Wanda's small hand covers her wrist. "Wait," she says.
Natasha looks up. Wanda's pupils are blown wide, but they glimmer with a hint of mischief. Her mouth is kissed red, her hair in wild disarray, and Natasha has never wanted her more. "Hm?"
"Do you trust me?" Wanda asks.
Natasha's breath catches. She nods. Wanda doesn't move, and Natasha realizes that she wants to hear it. "Yes," says Natasha. She hears her own voice crack.
Wanda moves quickly. She rolls on top of Natasha and sits up, straddling her waist. Then she leans over Natasha, undoes the cuff that tethers her to the bedframe, and loops the short chain between two metal slats. Wanda grabs Natasha's other wrist, and stretches her arm over her head. "Is this okay?" she asks, and Natasha gulps and nods before Wanda locks on the other cuff.
Natasha's arms are pinned over her head now, and she thinks faintly that she should really find this uncomfortable, but instead she only feels rushing, hot desire and anticipation for Wanda's next move. Wanda's head dips down and she catches Natasha's lips against her own, and Natasha makes a mewling noise when Wanda's hand slides down her side and thumbs at the waist of her sweatpants. A moment later, and Wanda's hands are underneath Natasha's clothing, her fingers finding their way between her legs. Natasha cries out and bucks her hips, and their kisses grow sloppier as Natasha's breath starts to rasp.
"You're so wet," Wanda mumbles against her lips. "I want to taste it."
Natasha can barely wrap her mind around a response, as Wanda strokes her wetter, but then Wanda is kissing her way down Natasha's throat, rolling off Natasha's pants, burying her face between Natasha's thighs, and at the first touch of Wanda's tongue to Natasha's swollen clit, she's able to form the words holy fucking shit.
Wanda laps at Natasha until Natasha's knees are drawn up around Wanda's ears, and her hips jerk needily as she shudders her way towards gasping climax and the feeling of white hot bliss roaring through her.
And then Natasha is tingling, and boneless, and ready to melt into a sigh. Wanda's head bobs up from between her legs, and her tongue traces over her wet lips. She slithers up Natasha's frame and uncuffs her wrists, and Natasha sags, and Wanda curls up against her side.
"Fuck," Natasha breathes. "That was – that was –"
"There are lots of ways to heal," Wanda says. Natasha feels like she must be right. She feels at ease now, maybe even serene, and when she looks at Wanda drifting to sleep beside her, Natasha feels a warm glow in her chest. Tomorrow, she thinks that this might frighten her. Tonight, she wants to revel in the soft comfort its immediacy brings. She wraps her arm around Wanda's waist, and pulls her firm against her side. They fall asleep tucked against one another.
Natasha doesn't dream at all.