~Child's Play~
"Love is for children, I owe him a debt."
A/N: I was rewatching The Avengers and as always, Natasha's line about love gets me every time. This time I decided to write about it. Who can blame me, I love Scarlet Widow.
DISCLAIMER: If I owned it, you'd know it.
~Child's Play~
Love is for children. A game people play when they are young and naïve as to what the disease can do to them. Natasha Romanoff is above it. She has never liked games, and she most certainly does not play them.
After falling for Bruce Banner, it was like trying to cut out a part of her, trying to rid herself of the infection that swallowed her bloodstream. She had played the game. She had loved. She had lost. She cut out a part of her self and let it obliterate with the flying city.
Natasha Romanoff is a grown woman. She has no business in child's play. She withdraws her stock in love and finishes bleeding her feelings over her work. She trains her new soldiers, a reassembling of Earth's mightiest heroes, along side the Captain. War is not a game. It is destruction. She was raised in destruction. It is why she fights.
Wanda Maximoff never knew there was a game to be played. There was only one person in her life that she loved, and he had been killed trying to be a hero. She never played games because her life had been constant fighting. There was little left of her. She wondered what it would be like to be whole.
There is a chessboard set up in the center of the room. Natasha Romanoff sits at it, moving each piece with careful consideration, rotating the board as she switches sides. This is what she does in her spare time in order to forget that there is so little of her left. She is good at strategy.
"Hello, Ms. Romanoff," a gentle voice comes from the other side of the room. Natasha does not look up from her pawns.
"I told you, Wanda. Call me Natasha," she says, making a move, rotating the board, "What's up?"
"Is that chess, Natasha?" The voice is closer now, right by her side.
"Yes."
"Do you mind if we start a game?"
"I don't like to think of it as a game, Wanda. Games are for children. But, to answer your question, no, I don't mind. Have a seat."
Wanda Maximoff slides into the seat across from her, a careful, shy smile on her lips. Natasha finally looks up from the pieces, staring into the green doe eyes across from her and finds herself smiling back.
The chess match takes place mostly in silence, without eye contact. Neither discloses their strategy as they make their pieces dance across the checkered patterned wood. Wanda clears her throat to break the silence twelve minutes later.
"You said you do not think of this as a game, Natasha?" Wanda murmurs, making a move, corner of her lips quirking.
"That's right, Wanda. I don't play games," Natasha confirms, taking her turn.
"That is a shame," Wanda continues, taking one of Natasha's pieces for her own.
"Oh? Why's that?" Natasha counters by taking one of Wanda's pawns.
"Because sometimes, it is fun to play games," Wanda looks Natasha dead in the eye as she makes her next move, "Checkmate."
"What?" Natasha gasps, watching as Wanda knocks her king down, "How did-," she bites back her words and nods approvingly, "Well. Good game, Wanda."
Wanda smiles, more confident this time, as she stands up from the table, crossing around to a stunned Natasha, who looks up at her, smiling back again.
"Thank you, Natasha," Wanda murmurs, leaning down and placing a small kiss on Natasha's lips, sending shivers down both of their spines, "We should play games more often, hm?"
With that, Wanda turns and walks away as quietly as she came. Natasha stares after her, shaking her head.
"Well I'll be damned, Maximoff," she whispers, touching her still tingling lips, "You've just beat me at a game I didn't know I was playing."
Natasha Romanoff is a fighter. She has no times for children's games like love. However, sitting there in the once-again empty room, she is left feeling more of herself than she has since she watched Sokovia go up in flames. There is one thing she is better at than strategy. And that is winning. As she stares after Wanda, she thinks maybe she has won after all.