I'll Be Forever Yours
Chapter 3

Natasha opened the door with ease, surprised that Maria had not locked it. It was a very out of character movement for the woman, even if she was expecting company. Maria seemed like the person to keep the door locked and double check that the person at the door was the right person.

Natasha just shrugged and cautiously opened the door, careful of what she might find but all she saw was Maria furiously wailing on a punching bag, unaware of Natasha's presence until Natasha closed the door, causing the woman to jump in surprise, hands up in preparation to defend herself.

The two women stared at each other until Maria started to walk slowly towards Natasha, unblinking in her movements as she kept their gazes lock. Utter disbelief was written all over her face.

Natasha was standing there, looking at Maria with a mixture of confusion and anger, the take out she had bought was now lying forgotten on the ground. The women found themselves lost for words, just starting at each other, taking in the small changes that have happened over the past few months.

"Y-you're here..." Maria stuttered out, her hand slowly stretching towards, as though she is not quite believing that Natasha was really here.

Natasha found herself unable to reply, seemingly struck speechless by Maria's appearance. The usual composure that Maria had, which was heavily influenced by the military, was completely gone and replaced with an unstable look. Maria was standing there with what Natasha could only describe as an unhinged look in her eyes which seemed to emphasised by the blood coated knuckles hanging tensely by her sides and the rumpled clothes on her body seemed to tie the whole look together. Maria was a mess.

However, her appearance seemed absolutely amazing when Natasha took in the sight of Maria's apartment. Maria was a clean freak, to the point Natasha was beginning to question whether or not it was a serious OCD disorder but yet here they both were, standing in a dump. Literally. Natasha had never really put much faith in the saying 'it looked like a bomb went off' but there was no other way to describe it.

What the hell happened to Maria?

Natasha eventually managed to figure out how her body work and slowly made her way towards Maria, her eyes shifting to the punching bag. Well, that would explain the bloody knuckles. As she was walking slowly, she tried to make a game plan on how to deal with this. She was never one for emotions really, an apparent side effect of the red room, yet here she was, thrusted into a situation where she needed to learn to deal with them and help someone else deal with their emotions.

She understood the premise of it all, she has had to fake it for missions, play the empathy card and use it all to manipulate her targets without a care in the world. The difference between that and this was that she knew she was supposed to care and be upset about Maria, and she was, but she was confused and angry more so. She was angry that Maria was being so gentle about the whole soulmate thing, making she that it was all at Natasha pace and that Natasha was comfortable with everything, that she knew that she was in charge yet when she comes back and expect to relax she's met with a mess of a women.

She's angry yet she knows she shouldn't. It wasn't Maria's fault, Natasha knew it was the part of the brain that dealt with the chemical reactions that meeting your soulmate that was causing this.

Growing up, soulmates was a forbidden topic. It was to never be discussed and if it was, it was punishable by death. The girls who were lucky enough to know about them from their lives before the red room told the other girls in hushed whispers during training, when their bodies were pressed so close that their handlers would never be able to hear what they were talking about. They talked about it in the dead of night, whispers quiet as the bristle of leaves, carrying over the closest bed to them and like a game of Chinese whispers the stories carried, pretending to be sleeping when they had their nightly checks to make sure they were sleeping peacefully whilst handcuffed to their beds.

At least ten girls were shot dead in front of them for passing the stories on. Natasha and the rest of them face punishment that she still shuddered about, suppressing the memory whenever it came up.

If Maria, her very own soulmate, wanted to try it, she was going to and she meant it. She was trying it for the old foe that turned out to be a secret blessing and for the girls in her group, mercilessly killed because they continue to hold on to the belief that they had a soulmate and that they would rescue them from the horrible reality that they lived in. She was trying it for herself as well, as apparently she was allowed to try that.

"Maria..." She started quietly, trying to think about the best way to deal with this. Since she had a lack of knowledge on everything to do with soulmates, she had to read some books and articles on it in the last week. There was a lot of interesting information and a lot of it is speculating as nothing seems to be the same for every soulmate pair – except one thing. Rejection. Every soulmate pair seem to have the same reaction to rejection from a soulmate, well, the same three reactions. Reading about caused Natasha to freeze last night as she read about how the brain can perceive rejection and a popular example was one of the pair leaving soon after meeting for a long period of time can mess with the other person, causing them to feel as though they had been rejected.

It seems like this is what happened – Natasha had been anxious the whole night as she travelled back to Maria as soon as she read that. She has actually finished her missions within a month and was simply sightseeing, trying to force herself to not think about Maria and convince herself that she did not need to constantly see her soulmate, they were not going to have one of those clingy relationships that everyone seemed to have.

Occasionally whilst she was away she would feel an ache in her heart and she would scoff, shoving it away, blaming it on her being sentimental about past memories, but she was beginning to wonder whether or not she forced those feelings on Maria, causing this to happen a bit more intensively than usual.

Based on everything she read, the best way to start would be physical contact, close physical contact. Skin to skin would be a good idea, according to the research papers she had read, but Natasha was not ready for that. It was far to vulnerable of an action for her liking.

Natasha opened her arms as she stepped closer, carefully avoiding items on the floor. They would also have to tidy up at some point tonight, it would make Maria feel better. In the short time she was with her, Maria hated mess and would be unable to feel much better until the mess around her was gone.

Maria looked at her, her eyes watery but holding back like the solider she was and accepted the invitation and stepped into her personal space, her eyes still hesitant to hug her. Natasha almost rolled her eyes, but gently reminded herself that she shouldn't and pulled her in close, wrapping her arms securely around Maria. Maria seemed to instantly slump against, eyes closed in tiredness.

"Hi." Maria mumbled, holding on tight.

"Hi." Natasha mimic, eyes focused on the windows, watching the outside world pass by as she tried not to freak out of the emotions she was feeling – the need to just hold and protect this women, to make sure she never felt like this every again.

"Your food's on the floor." Maria mumbled again, lifting her head slightly, presumably to look at the forgotten food on the floor.

"To get the food, I have to let you go." Natasha said, almost regretting it as Maria tensed in her arms, pulling away with a snarl on her face.

"I don't need to you to hold my twenty-four seven, Natasha." Maria snapped, taking two steps back, arms crossing over her chest.

Natasha sighed, this isn't what she meant, but she might as well pick up the food now. "That is not what I meant, Maria." She said gently, placing the food on the counter, " I just thought that you – we could use some nice hugging time after being apart for so long. That's what soulmates do, right?"

Maria eyes glanced down, as though she regretted her actions, but anger marred her face and Natasha knew Maria would snap at her again and no doubt it would be about Natasha knowledge of soulmates. "Well I don't know? Is it? Seems everything I knew about soulmates to be wrong, but you seem to know everything about them and the best way to deal with a soulmate – which is apparently by leaving for so long!" Maria growled, glaring at her from across the room.

Natasha just moved closer to her, making sure to keep eye contact, "actually I know very little about soulmates, well I knew very little at the time. I read about them in a book about a week ago and read about the effects of leaving your soulmate last night."

Maria looked very taken back by this, but it seemed to work. Revealing something shocking seemed to have broke through the anger-hazed mind that Maria currently had to realise how she was acting. Maria took a deep breath, calming herself before speaking again.

"Sorry...I shouldn't have snapped at you like that. It was angry that you had left for so long but that is no excuse when you came back with food and apologetic." Maria said, keeping the eye contact that Natasha had established, although Natasha thinks it was so that Maria could make sure that she knew that Maria really was sorry.

Natasha rolled her eyes, brushing the apology off in a careless way, "It's okay Maria, I messed up without realising it, I'm sorry to."

Maria laughed a little "I don't think you should have to apologies with the way I acted it, it wasn't an acceptable way to act. Besides, if you did not know, you did not know. I should have considered this."

Natasha blinked, she just did not understand this women. She should have to apologise because she did something wrong, even if it was due to a lack of knowledge. "Maria-" she started, but Maria cut her off.

"It's okay. Maybe you can tell me a little about it whilst I quickly tidy this mess up?" Maria enquired, trying to be subtle about her curiosity about her past.

Natasha rolled her eyes, "maybe another day Maria. If you tell me where things go, I can help." Natasha offered.

"No. It is easier if I just do. Everything can go back into their correct space much faster." Maria mumbled, already focused on putting stuff away. So Natasha ended up sitting on the counter in the kitchen as Maria moved with a swift grace and put everything away, back into their correct spot and apparently their correct position as well as she watched with a raise eyebrow as Maria seemed to evenly space out the remotes for the telly on the coffee table.

It only took five minutes or so of relative silence between the two as Maria worked away, mumbling to herself quietly as she cleaned up. As Maria was coming to a finish, Natasha put the food in the microwave to quickly heat it up for them to eat and pour them a drink to go with their meal.

"Thanks for waiting" Maria said tiredly, making Natasha wonder if the women was getting enough sleep.

"Well I did buy it for the both of us" she joked as she put the plates on the table, sliding into a chair.

Maria smile tentatively at her from across the table as the two of them ate their food in silence, neither of them sure of what to say. It wasn't until they were done with their food did Maria attempt to make light conversation.

"Thanks for the food, it was good... are you planning on staying the night?" She question.

"It was nothing and yeah, if that's alright with you, of course." Natasha smiled back at her.

"Yeah, always. Are you wanting to stay in the guest room?" Maria, trying to act casual as she gather the plates, rinsing them and putting them in the dishwasher.

"I figured it would be better for our health if we stayed in the same bed tonight." Natasha replied back, just as casual, trying to not laugh at how awkward this situation was turning out to be. She never thought she would end up like this, that was for sure.

Maria looked stunned for a brief moment but then struggled to keep the smile off her face, "only if you are sure, Natasha."

Natasha rolled her eyes in response. "If we're going to be sharing a bed, you're going for a shower, because no offence, but it looks like its been a few weeks since you've washed."

Maria's face reddened but nodded in agreement, "yeah... I think I went a bit off the rails. Just a tad over dramatic." She joked, rather self-deprecating.

"Not really, over-dramatic would be if I was still here and all this happened. It's not the worse response. A little bit messy and dirty? Nothing compared to what I've read." Natasha said casually, or at least she hoped she appeared like that.

She meant it when she said that she wanted to make things better for them going forward, if that meant making Maria feels less self-concious about her reaction, then so be it.

It was Maria's turn to roll her eyes. "Sap." She accused as she grabbed a towel from the cupboard, apparently going for a shower now.

"You're the one going crazy for me." Natasha teased, testing the waters as well as trying to make it normal for Maria.

Maria just flipped her off as she walked away, but Natasha could see the smile on her face. Good.

Now Natasha was left to her own devices, she decided to have a good look around the apartment, she had spotted some boxes hidden away when she first walked in with labels on them indicating what they were. She walked over to the far end of the apartment and peered round the corner where she saw the boxes. Excellent, she thought to herself as she walked into the room filled with boxes. Maria must have just moved in when they first met, and she still hasn't unpacked boxes? Seems like a strange thing for the women.

She grabbed the photo's box, feeling like that would seem like less of an invasion of privacy if Maria walked in on her snooping session. It was a lot more filled that what Natasha would have guessed for the private women, who seemingly was left to her own devices.

Apparently this box was proving her earlier thoughts wrong. She had thought Maria had no family and rarely socialised with friends but the picture in her hand, which was dated several months ago, showed that Maria had some living relatives and that she was a triplet.

A triplet, now how did that not come up in their small conversations? More importantly, when she was staking Maria out, she never saw anyone coming or going. She frown briefly as she put it to the side and continue to look through some of the photos before pulling out a photo album filled of Maria and her siblings as children with happy grins on their faces. Even as children and as adults, there was barely nothing that Natasha could use to tell them apart in the photos. Their brother look creepily similar to them as well, as young child he had his hair grown out, nearly matching his sisters in length but in newer photos he was short hair and clean shaven.

The only thing missing, from what Natasha has learned, is a whole family photo. None of these photo's show Maria's parents. There was a few old photo's of someone identical to Maria, that she assumed was her mother. The women was looking happily into the camera, one hand settled on the small swell of her stomach and the other hold up three different baby scans. The only photo of the woman before the triplets were born was one that was taken in a hospital, the woman looked to be in pain but was giving the best smile she could and holding her thumbs up as it showed her mid sitting into a wheelchair. It also highlight how big she had gotten holding three children.

After that photo, there was no photos of the woman and not a single one of Maria's father. What happened to them? Footsteps gently padding down the hall broke her focus on the pictures as Maria made her way towards Natasha.

"She died in childbirth." Maria supplied, making Natasha look back at her with a frown. Maria was leaning against the door, hair damp and resting now in her pyjamas which consisted of a tank top and star wars trousers styled like sweatpants.

"Oh. Sorry to hear that." Natasha offered, putting all the pictures back in the box.

Maria shrugged as she casually fixed the way Natasha put the first two pictures in, making Natasha just hand the pictures to her instead of putting them in herself. Maria flashed her a quick smile before continuing their conversation.

"Thanks, I'm okay with it now. It's weird how you can miss someone you've never met. The human mind is a weird one." Maria mused, carefully avoiding an actual conversation about the topic, Natasha noticed.

"What about your dad?" She question, pushing the subject lightly.

"He's an ass. His pictures were burnt." Maria said sharply, a clear indication that Natasha was not to push the topic any further.

"Okay." Natasha replied calmly, standing up, easily pulling Maria with her. "What do you want to do now? It's not that late."

"It's eleven at night." Maria deadpanned.

"How old are you again?" Natasha questioned, acting shocked.

"Old enough to enjoy a constant bedtime when I automatically get up early every morning." Maria responded "but I suppose on this occasion, I can give up my routine to enjoy a nice night with my soulmate." She teased, guiding them back to the living room.

The two of them found themselves back in a similar position on the first night that Natasha stayed, sitting close to each other so the their thighs and arms were touching, a blanket spread over them as they watched a cheesy movie. From the way Maria kept shifting around and glancing, at what she probably thought was subtly, at her, Natasha assumed she wanted to asked about why she knew nothing about soulmates previously.

"Spit it out, Maria." Natasha eventually sighed after dealing with ten minutes of her squirming.

Maria at least had the decency to blush at little at being caught out " I, ah, just wanted to know what you meant exactly when you said that you just read up on soulmates..."

Natasha sighed, shifting slightly. "It was a forbidden topic when growing up. If we discuss soulmates we could have been killed if it was a bad day for the handlers." a little white lie wouldn't hurt Maria. Discussing any parts of the red room with people makes them go weird and Natasha does not like it. "Even when it came down to missions, we never talked about soulmates, other than how to convince our targets that soulmates mean nothing."

Maria's eyes widened at that last bit of information. "You can do that?" she sounded shocked, and a little bit apprehensive.

Natasha was quick to reassure her, "It's easy to do when the person is drugged up, rich and has no soulmate. When they have a soulmate its very difficult to do, we – the red room designed this drug that we would give to our targets if they had soulmates to manipulate their perceived reality and allow us to get the information we needed."

"Oh." Maria said, staring ahead as she tried to process this information. "So, you knew nothing about them? Then how did you know what the words on your skin were and if it were punishable by death when you were growing, shouldn't you be traumatised by-"

Natasha had enough, she didn't mind sharing somethings with Maria but they were too early in their very, very fragile relationship to be discuss Natasha's past in this much depth. She grabbed the straps of Maria's top and pulled her in close, pressing their mouths together, holding her close.

Maria gasped against her mouth, Natasha decided to take advantage of this and further distract her by sliding her tongue against Maria's. She moved backwards, bringing Maria with her and settling the younger women on top of herself. She arranged herself how she preferred and tangled one hand in Maria's hair and rested her other hand on the small of Maria's back, the perfect position to hold her in place.

Maria groaned, her hands down on either side of Natasha, holding most of her weight up. Natasha wanted to roll her eyes and pull her right down on top of her but decided against it. Eventually Maria seemed to realised what happened and pulled back, breathing heavily as she stared at Natasha.

"Not that I'm complaining, but you could have just said that you didn't want to talk about it." Maria said, a smile on her face, looking suspiciously dazed.

Natasha just forced a smile to her face and let out a small chuckle, "yeah I guess. I'm actually kinda tired now, can we go to bed." she felt quiet strange now, strange in a way that if she asked, Maria would just drop a subject. She was so used to just using her body to make things go her away and stop conversations she didn't want.

Maria eyed her suspiciously "do...do you want me to go into the guest room and you can have my room? My bed is a lot better, mainly because I spent so much more money on it."

Natasha rolled her eyes once again, she had a feeling she was going to do this a lot whilst they are still learning about each other. "No, I'd like it if we are in the same room. Come on." Natasha replied, standing up and stretching herself out, she held her hand out for Maria with a taunting grin, trying to keep their moods up and pulling her close when Maria slide her hand into hers.

"We can't carry this on if one of us is in the guest room now, can we?" She teased in a low voice, watching as Maria's eye widened and mouth going slightly slack.

"Ngh...no...no!" Maria stated, managing to shake herself from the daze Natasha managed to trap her in. She put some space between the two of them, "I mean... no not tonight... it's great having you back and it's easier to act normal but I can't do... I can't." Maria finished lamely, unable to really come up with an excuse, not that Natasha needed one. If Maria said no, then it's a no.

The women was better at hiding her feelings than Natasha thought as she looked closer at the women. She thought that being affectionate with her would fix the way she was acting. After all, wasn't the reason she was all messed up because Natasha had left? Natasha was confused as to why Maria still seemed slightly out of it by the end of the night after she seemed fine earlier.

Maria seemed to pick up on the confusion that Natasha was having and gently cupped Natasha face "Hey, I'm fine, I swear... just lack of sleep, yeah? Let's go to bed." Maria encouraged, gently grabbing Natasha's hand again and taking her to the bedroom.

Natasha allowed Maria to guide her to the bedroom,watching as Maria got the room ready for sleeping and flung some night time clothes at Natasha, she debated about getting changed in front of Maria, to tease her a little but figured it would be pushing it and got changed in the attached bathroom. When she came back out, Maria was waiting anxiously for her.

"So...what side of the bed do you want?" Maria questioned, glancing at the bed. It was clear that Maria normally sleeps on the right closest to the window from the slight grooves in the bed.

"Left." She commented easily, not quiet having the heart to ask for the side closest to the window as Maria still doesn't seem sure of herself.

Maria rolled her eyes and climbed into bed on the left side, giving her a pointed looked "turn off the lights before you get in."

Natasha blinked, confused as to why Maria did that but followed the instructions.

"For a notorious spy, who I really shouldn't be housing in my bedroom, you can be really easy to read." Maria teased as they faced each other in the dark.

Natasha kept the ball going, smiling at the light banter they had, "I'm only easy to read because I choose so and oh? You're prepared to commit treason for me?" she teased back.

Maria yawned sleepily, apparently just lying in bed made the woman ten times more tired, "Natasha I think I would happily commit treason for the rest of my life along with other namable offences if it meant staying with you. I'd move to Russia, and I hate the cold." Maria mumbled, closing her eyes.

Natasha frowned a little, thinking about it more, technically Maria was committing treason by consorting with a known enemy spy, she did not work for Russia anymore or the red room. She was a free person but she was here illegally. She could really mess things up for Maria if she isn't careful.

"Stop thinking about it too much, Natasha and come hold me." Maria grumbled, turning her back to Natasha. Natasha sighed but did as she was asked and settled in behind Maria, holding her close, wondering if this was the best thing for Maria.

It was a problem for another day, for now, she was going to join her soulmate in a deep slumber.