MCU (c) Marvel Studios

Hands. Hands had always been important to Natasha. She made her living by studying hands. As a palm reader she had seen so many hands. Old hands, worn with age and a life time of stories. Thin and knobby knuckled with thick blue veins and soft papery skin, speckled with liver spots and fingers that shook. These hands knew the hardship of the world, in cruelties it vested upon people. They were strong hands though, enduring life's hardships, and they were always gentle for they understood the value of kindness and compassion. She found so many wonderful predictions in the old hands that she read.

Young hands told different stories. Young hands untouched by life's hardships, hopeful and arrogant in some cases. Strong and firm or slender and delicate, some had scars (and they always were interesting to read), others were flawless and unmarred with fancy nails and glittering rings. Others had images tattooed, the colors and symbols jumping out of their skin. She would smile, tracing the lines on their hands, telling them their future or rather what they wanted to hear, her grandmother told her that palmistry is not so much the art of foresight but that of hindsight, a person's palm changed as they grew. The young hands she saw seemed to favor her grandmother's assessment. She would charge the going rate of fifteen dollars a reading. She gave them an experience, slathering on her Russian accent, the silly get-up with the beads and the feathers and the incent. The tourists lapped it up, the local hippies and occult enthusiasts did too. She made enough to buy groceries and pay her bills, so she didn't complain.

Hands were her life, but her hands told a different story. One of a harsh childhood in Russia — Volgograd to be exact — and fingers that plucked and teased wallets of rich men from their pockets, slipped rings and jewels from their rich wives. Silent crafty fingers that pawned their findings off so there were some extra rubles for her family to buy a loaf of bread while the communist regime crumbled all around them. Hands that knew a family only to lose it, forced into a dark criminal underworld, where they learned more skills, deadly skills. How to pleasure and tease only to slay without a sound. A touch, a flutter of the fingers, luring men and women to their deaths, plucking the strings of life like a spider. Her hands knew only warm slick feeling of blood, until hands just as bloodied as hers pulled her out, brought her here and cleaned the blood from them.

Her hands built a new life in Brooklyn, working as a palm reader and seller of fantasy theme knickknacks and used books. The CIA agent that saved her would stop by from time to time, his hands speaking what he could not, asking her hands if she was alright, if she needed anything. Always kind, always caring, always worried about her. Her hands told him what her words did not. How she was scared and unsure; yet felt freer than the wind here and safe from the world she left behind. He would leave with a book or a knickknack, and his hands would promise he'd come back to check on her.

It had been several weeks since Agent Barton came. Several weeks since their hands spoke to one another, and her hands yearned for the friendship of his. Today, however, was gloomy and her hands remained idle. Nobody was out wandering and looking for touristy thrills. She flipped a page of the book she was reading, one hand drumming against the green velvet of the table cloth she used. Izzy and Dino slinked around her shop, two guardian shadows, bemused at her and vexed at the rain. "Looks like nobody's coming boys," she said, looking at the cats. They blinked at her, Izzy flicked his tail and Dino gave a yawn. She smiled. The bell over the door chimed and in stumbled a man around her own age. He was tall, board shouldered with a narrow waist; handsome in that perfect Ken doll way. His had a well-kept beard and hair mussed from the rain. The rain had soaked him.

"Shit." He set his items down, destroyed paintings. She frowned, feeling a bit sorry for him though she didn't say anything. She never had someone run into her shop without realizing that it was a shop. She set her book down at her feet, laying her hands flat on the table and watched. He continued to fret over the ruined pieces of art and looked around. Their eyes met, and she noticed he had vivid blue eyes, like that of the sky. "Oh, uh… hi."

"Here for a reading?" she asked, a little smirk on her face. She liked him, especially his hands. Strong and big, with slender fingers: hands of a pianist or an artist, maybe even a surgeon. She wondered what stories his hands could tell. "It's on the house."

"I uh… I don't believe in this stuff," he said, gesturing at her table and her goods for sale. "Sorry."

"Not everyone does," she said, "it's okay to be a skeptic. It's more about the journey than the destination."

"Now I know you're a fake. I heard that somewhere, maybe read it in a book." He came over to the table though, and her smirk widened. He was intrigued and had settled his hands on his narrow waist.

She leaned forward, resting her chin in her hand and staring at him, trying to puzzle him out by how he held himself. He was confident in his abilities though not so much his social skills, his clothes were well worn (maybe even second hand) which spoke of a life with little money, but they were clean and he smelled of cedar and cypress. There was something beneath his Brooklyn accent, another one she couldn't place, something Gaelic by the lilt she heard that would bleed through. "Sit, it's free and no belief is required," she said, gesturing to seat. He bit his lip, thinking and decided that there was no harm and sat down. He set his hands down on the table, drumming his fingers.

"No crystal ball?" he asked.

"Nah." She shook her head. "Looks tacky and there is no magic behind it." She held her hand out flat. "Hand?"

"No magic in this either," he said and gave her his right hand. She snorted a little bit, hoping he was going to be a leftie, but took his hand anyway. She ran her fingers over his palm, letting her hand become familiar with his. His skin was smooth with notable callouses on his thumb and first two fingers. His hand told her of his love for art, the feel of paper against his fingertips, how bringing images to life one line at a time gave him a thrill. How shading with charcoal was an art in and of itself. A failed dream to study art in Paris; this his hand whispered to hers in a sad tone.

"Divination isn't magic," she said, giving him a smile. "What's your name?" she asked, studying his palm. Her hand coaxed his to talking, telling her of his life in a way his words could not. A hard life standing up to bullies twice his scrawny size; how he had hit the gym as a teen and fell in love with boxing (though his first love would always be baseball). "Don't be shy."

"Steve."

"Steve," she said. "Nice name."

"Thanks. And you?"

She thought about giving him her stage name: The Mystical Black Widow, but his hand spoke to her about how he valued truth and honesty. "Natasha," she said. She hummed, her hand asking his questions. His hand spoke back, telling her of his life as a soldier, of his best friend since childhood and a tragedy that befell him. "You lost someone?" she asked, tracing his life line. "This mark here speaks of a great lost."

"Yeah," he said. "I did." He pulled his hand away, and she frowned. "Look, if you aren't going to tell me my future then I should go. I don't want to hold you up."

"Palmistry isn't about the future," she said, "and you aren't." She studied his hands, how they clenched into fists only to relax. They spoke of anger, but not directed at her, frustration that had its roots in circumstances surrounding his life. The life that they guarded from her, untrusting of her hands to understand. "But if you want a future I could take a few guesses."

"Well, it is on the house."

"You lost someone recently, someone you cared about, and this has set you upon a crossroad. Do you either go forward and accept the lost or stay put in the past and dwell." She cocked her head, which his hands would share their secrets with hers. "You're prior military, you dress neat and keep wearing a high and tight style which is typical of a servicemember that found it good for a wash'n'wear style." She leaned back and drummed her nails against the table. He remained impassive but his fists had tightened, his hands upset that she had guessed correctly. Her hands itched to speak with his, their conversation cut short. "You're also heartbroken, someone left you or something and you no longer believe in love."

"You don't know me."

"I don't have to," she said, "I read palms, tell people what they want to hear, get paid." She leaned back. "Pays the bills so I'm not complaining." She spoke these words with her voice but her hands told her true story, and his fists unclenched, listening to hers. "You seemed harried, coming into my shop without realizing it was a shop."

"I uh… well my paintings are ruined," he said, and his hands expressed his sadness better than his words. She smiled, hands always spoke truth when mouth and tongue could weave lies. "Had an um… never mind, it's not important." He waved his hand in a manner that was the opposite of his words. A buyer maybe, an important one that could launch his artistic career. "I'm still waiting for my future."

"What do you want to hear?" she asked. "Love? Life? Successful career? A wife and house with a white picket fence and the two-point-five kids?"

He barked a laugh and his hands told her about the love he lost, the woman with blond hair and dark eyes. How she strung him along only to break his heart when he needed her the most. How that was after coming home from overseas with his crippled friend. "That's a dream. How do you have two-point-five kids?"

"Have a third one and chop it in half," she said, quirking a smile to let him know she wasn't serious. He shook his head at that. "What do you want now?"

He bit his finger, tapping his fingers of his other hand. His hands told her that he wanted a home, a love, where things felt real and he could feel safe, love. Where his heart wouldn't get broken and people wouldn't take advantage of him. "A million dollars."

"Don't see that in your future, sorry," she said. He leaned forward, cupping his hands in front of him. Guarded and wary but intrigued, his left pinky sticking out. "Want me to lie and say you win the lottery?"

"Isn't that your job?" he asked with a quirk of his brow. His hands wanted to understand her hands, wanted to know they held so much secrets. She flushed, forgetting that hands spoke to each other and as she touched and traced his, asking his hands questions with her own, his hands had done the same. They wanted to know why she was caught up in her melancholy, why they dripped blood no matter how hard she scrubbed. "To predict stuff like that?"

"No." She leaned forward, putting her hands over his. "You're going to marry a woman that was unexpected, a woman you never thought you'd find or who could love you. She'll need saving in some way."

"I'm not a hero," he said, "never was, never will be."

Lies, his hands told hers. He was a hero, despite how he blamed himself. His friend was alive, better alive with three limbs then dead with four. "Some will say otherwise."

"Those people are liars," he said. "Not sure about you though."

"Never called you a hero."

"You got me there." He smiled. "How do I meet this woman?"

"You run into her, unexpected but welcomed."

"And how will you know who she is?" he asked, and she smiled when his hands fell, allowing hers to nestle into his palms. His thumb stroked her knuckles, and the action washed away a bit of blood. His hands knew the answer. Hands always knew things before head and heart, it was why they guided the body through the world. Every casual touch, ever breath of the wind on a warm summer day, every spray from raindrops or salt-sea, every cozy sense of heat from a fire or firm grip of a loved one, the softness of a blanket or cat fur. The hands knew so much and they spoke to each other with touches, sharing what they knew with the world and what their heads and hearts dreamed and wanted.

"Your hands will," she said. "They'll reach other and take her hands, whisper softly to them and tell her hands it's okay now, she can stop running, she can stop crying in the darkness, screaming that she can never be broken even though she was." She licked her lips, squeezing his hands. "And your hands will comfort hers, share their secrets with hers. Bit by bit they'll come to understand each other more so than the head and the heart ever could."

"My hands huh?"

"Yeah." She smiled when he squeezed her hands back. "Your hands."

Well, who know this prompt would be so hard. Normally I'll find this prompt kinda easy but apparently not!

Anyway, I watched Before We Go. I really enjoyed it, it reminded me of what I wrote for school. Very lit fic-y. Chris Evans is a good director. Though I'd cut out the hotel kiss as I felt it wasn't needed. The kiss at the end felt more powerful.

Also, I'm not sure which hand is Steve's dominate hand so I went with Chris Evans' dominate hand (Chris is right handed btw).

Last prompt later today.

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