"It's not so much that I wanted, or want, to have a baby," Natasha says. It is dim and quiet, and she is in Maximoff's quarters, and the door is closed, and the abbreviated rubied waterfall of her hair is as shadowed as the darkness under a pile of bombed rubble. "That wasn't even the point, really. Just the excuse. Hostages to others' bad fortune or at least that was what they told us, but that wasn't… really… the point."
"I know," Wanda says. She is lying on her side in her pajamas, on top of the covers, red jacket tugged around her, and curled with her back against the wall. The single bunk beneath them holds them both easily.
'You do, do you."
"I was there. In your head. Can't warp a dream unless you see the original."
'Story of my life." Natasha sighs and raises her leather-clad legs, stretching her feet in a perfect pointe position. As much as she loves her team-mates, she thinks, it's nice to have another girl to talk to… Nicer than she'd ever thought it would be, never mind her current position (what with Bruce's disappearance, Clint's withdrawal, Steve's enthusiastically sadistic training regimen, and Stark's … Starkiness….) that Boys are Stupid. She stretches her arches back for a count of sixty, and curls them in on themselves. The joints in her toes crunch and crackle gruesomely. "Conclusions?'
"They wanted to take away your ability to deal anything but death," the Scarlet Witch says matter-of-factly. "To destroy your ability to see yourself as an individual with the ability to offer the world anything of yourself but the destructive." She rolls comfortably on her back and tucks one arm behind her head… The fingers, hidden by hair, curl around a second, invisible hand. "Did you know that the birth control pill is officially listed as a class one carcinogen? It's right up there with napalm."
"Am I supposed to be grateful that they reduced my risk?"
"Quid pro quo. They reduced yours, and increased everyone else's."
"I'm not a tumah," Natasha intones, and they both snigger, and sober just as quickly. Wanda eyes her critically.
"You know why you like him, right?' she asks abruptly.
"What?'
"He's colorblind. Everything red, for him, is green. Including you."
"You're weird, Maximoff. Also, chronically metaphorical. I'm an assassin; I come with a handicap there."
"It's like in the song," Wanda says, and begins to sing. Her voice is light and sweet. "Green is the color of spring/And green can be cool and friendly-like/ And green can be big like a mountain/ And important like the ocean/And tall like a tree…" She stops at Natasha's bemused look. "You're Russian," she says patiently. "And bloody. Your ledger drips with red. You like that metaphor, at least. I saw that much. My point is, is that when he looks at you… You know he sees green. Growing things, springy things, big, strong, important things… Live things. You're alive, to him. Quintessentially so." The syllabic emphasis there is decidedly emphatic.
'Really, really weird. And… So what? You're saying that my feelings for him are a literal reflection of my narcissistic self-pity? That they aren't real?' For a moment, she sounds almost hopeful. Unfortunately for her, the Scarlet Witch is off the clock, and when the Scarlet Witch is off the clock, she deals nothing but reality…. It is a most recent habit – well, more of a developing hobby than a habit. Vision suggested she take up the practice four days ago as an antidote to the inevitable psychological results of her Enhanced neurophysiology, and so far, she's rather enjoying it. There are ways and ways of messing with people's heads, and sometimes, as the saying goes, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet.
Not that she's about to voice that particular metaphor to her particular audience at this point in time. She does have some tact.
"Yes, of course, and no, not at all. They're very real. So are his. Though his might have taken a temporary hit since you pushed him off that cliff. The Greater Good is all very well, but nobody likes being used. Ask Harry Potter."
"Harry Potter? What the hell?' Natasha says in bemusement. "Arnold? Harry Potter? Kermit the Frog? They weren't in my training program!'
'Sovakia does have the internet, you know. And I had a forcibly abbreviated childhood. I may or may not have compensated once Pietro got fast enough to whip in and out of the training base, into an electronics shop and back again with the latest tablets and whatnot before our handlers could literally blink. First they tried to take them away, but he'd just whip them right out of their hands, and then they tried to punish us by mixing up the wifi passwords, but that didn't work either. I'd just mixthem up right back. At the source."
That last was rather dour, and decidedly self- satisfied.
"I take it back," Natasha says. "You're not weird, you're scary."
"Weird and scary," Wanda says, with just a touch of complacency to go with the dour and satisfied.. "You two go well together."
That earns her an automatic roll of the eyes, and a poke in the ribs, but the hand withdraws almost before as it arrived. Pietro could have managed it, Wanda thinks wistfully.
"Maybe you're right," Natasha says, suddenly depressed again. "It's not like my psyche has ever been particularly subtle. And he does have that right to be pissed; I'd be pissed at me, if I were him."
"So let it be for awhile," Wanda says. "Let him be. He'll come back. He won't be able to help himself."
"How do you know? Did you see that in his head?'
"No," she says primly. "Or maybe. Or maybe yes. I can't answer that kind of question, Agent Romanoff. It would be completely unethical on my part."
"You'll go in and play fanfic roulette with people's imaginations and memories but you won't give any hints on the canonical level?"
"Spoilers are just not on, sweetie," the other woman intones, and sighs. "Such a pity Christopher Eccleson had only the one season. He was definitely my kind-of-Doctor."
"Bozhe moi. Suddenly my adolescence doesn't seem quite so horrific."
'What, you're not a fan?'
"Not of Nine, no. Even the TARDIS wouldn't have been able to contain sum- total of our mutual angst."
"Ten? Eleven?'"
"Whine-whine-whine, and I would have had to assassinate Eleven on culinary principle. He wasn't bad, per se, but he lost me at the fish-fingers and custard, and then there was Pond besides. She in no way, shape or form ever deserved Rory."
Wanda closes her eyes.
"You know when sometimes you meet someone so beautiful and then you actually talk to them and five minutes later they're as dull as a brick?' she quotes; "Then there's other people, when you meet them you think, "Not bad. They're okay." And then you get to know them and... and their face just sort of becomes them. Like their personality's written all over it. And they just turn into something so beautiful..."
Natasha is silent. The room is almost completely dark now. Wanda removes her hand from behind her head, and takes her hand and curls the cold, small fingers tightly between hers.
"He'll come back," she says quietly.
"How do you know,' she says.
"Because I do," she says. "He loves you."
"I shoved him off a cliff! Against his expressed and specific will!"
"We all got shoved off a cliff," the Scarlet Witch says. "We all flew away. But the world is round, and we'll find each other again. That's just the way it works."
"Is it."
"Yes." The fingers tighten. "We just have to be brave a little while longer. Hang on a little while longer."
Natasha turns on her side and buries her face in the red leather shoulder. It is not as broad and solid as Steve or Clint's; bird-delicate and rather bird-bony, actually, but the color is comforting. Familiar.
'Don't do that," Wanda says sharply.
"Do what?'
"You're practically humping my jacket. I told you, he loves you. That means you're green now."
"Uh huh." A knock sounds on the door.
"What," Natasha snaps.
"Hey Nat," Steve's voice says. "Rhodey and Sam and Vision are starting up a poker game down the lounge. Shall I tell them you two are coming?'
Wanda sniggers. Natasha eyes her.
"Be there soon," she says, and lowering her voice… "What?'
"I've been in his head," the Scarlet Witch says. "You do the math."
Natasha's eyebrows rise, delicately intrigued.
"Really. You mean…"
"Not saying yes, not saying no, not saying maybe," she sings-songs. The Black Widow does poke her this time, hard enough so that she squawks and bucks and shoves her off the bed. They both land on the floor with an undignified thump.
"Everything alright in there, ladies?' Captain America asks politely. "I'm off duty, but I can pull out the spandex if you think that it, and I, could be of assistance."
"Only if you bring your shield," Wanda says, choking with giggles into Natasha's shoulder. "Protection is ever so important. Especially when it's made of vibranium."
'I got that one," Captain America says from the hall, after a moment. "For the record. Really, Ms. Maximoff. You know my stance of vulgarity from those under my charge; don't make me punish you."
"It's not vulgarity," Natasha is red, or perhaps green, with laughter now. "it's protocol, Captain. Insofar as being under you… What happened to your vow to… serve and protect?'
"That's the name of a Canadian documentary television series, Agent Romanoff. Also, a variation on the motto of the Los Angeles Police department. It doesn't apply here. Lounge. Five minutes."
"Yes SIR!"
A long-suffering sigh sounded from the hall, and brisk footsteps. Wanda rolls off the assassin and sits up, gasping for breath and mopping at her crimson face. Natasha hauls her up.
"Come on," she says. "He's obviously in a mood, if he's feeding us lines like that. If we grab him as our team-mate, we can feed the others those lines all night, and they'll be so distracted that we'll clean them out in an hour flat."
"Rolling in the green," Wanda agrees. "I approve. See? You're getting the hang of it already!"
The door shuts behind them as they leave the room, sniggering together.