Heartbreak

Natasha's first 'boyfriend' was Bobby Davis during the summer between sixth grade and seventh. The entire relationship consisted of hanging out together within their group of combined friends, and stealing awkward and sloppy kisses with some mild awkward and sloppy groping behind the concession stand at the pool. Her first official solo date was in ninth grade. She and Miles Rosenberg went to a matinee movie and then had dinner at McDonald's and ice cream at Dairy Queen. Near the end of tenth grade Natasha kissed her first girl, Ivonna Kelly, the daughter of Natasha's Russian ballet teacher who owned the international dance school with her Irish husband that Natasha had attended since moving to D.C.. When things ended with Miles and Ivonna it stung. There was sadness and tears, and pie with her Ma, and cuddles with words of advice from her Mum.

Declan Beck was different than the childish romances and crushes that had happened before. For starters he was a college sophomore, while Natasha had just started her junior year of high school. They'd met while Natasha was taking a six week Latin class on campus during the summer, and while Natasha had been crushing on a cute blonde from London, she'd been charmed by the college boy who showed interest in getting to know her. He'd asked her for coffee after class, and Natasha had actually blushed as she tucked her hair behind her ear. Declan was tall, athletic looking but not a jock. His hair was a dark rich brown, shaved close on the sides so it ran seamlessly into his facial hair, but longish on top and swept back and off to the side. His eyes were the grey of winter skies. He was charming, funny, and he made Natasha feel more grown up then she was.

Coffee after class turned into meeting at a museum, grabbing a bite to eat on a Saturday afternoon after Natasha's dance class, or goofing off in the park. The first time they called it a date they'd gone to see a baseball game on a Saturday afternoon. The first time Peggy and Angie meet him, Declan is taking Natasha to a concert. He's polite and charming and says all the right things. As they're leaving, walking down the steps and down the path to his waiting car, Peggy reminds her daughter of her curfew much to Natasha's embarrassment. When Peggy closes the door of their home after they've driven off she looks at her wife and growls, "I don't like him."

"What's to like?" Angie agrees. "He's a college guy dating our teenage daughter, but you know if we try to force her into not seeing him it will backfire on us. We just have to bite our tongues for now, Peggy, and trust Nattie. Unless he does something really stupid and hurts her, then you can kick his ass and we'll get Fury to hide the body."

Declan gets Natasha a fake i.d. and takes her to the bars around campus. She knows better than to get drunk, she watches each drink as it's made and she always keeps her drink in her own hand. She knows her mothers don't approve, they think he's too old for her, but four years doesn't seem like a lot to her. Peggy tries to explain that at her age, four years might as well be a decade, but Natasha just rolls her eyes.

"You're overreacting, Mum!" Natasha shouts after hearing her mother's protests about going out with Declan again. "He's not like other guys!"

"I don't like him, Natasha." Peggy says firmly as she closes the distance between herself and her teenage daughter. Once she's in Natasha's space she makes the girl look her in the eyes. "And if you continue to raise your voice to me young lady you will not be going out with anyone because you'll be grounded. Am I understood?"

Natasha has the nerve to stomp her foot as she throws up her hands and turns to walk away from her mother. Her mothers were being ridiculous, Natasha told herself. They didn't know Declan, they didn't know he was sweet and not like the pushy sex driven high school boys she went to school with. He liked her because he found her interesting, witty, smart, and pretty, not just because he wanted to have sex with her.

"Cancel your plans, angel." Angie says as she shakes her head at her daughter. "You're grounded."

"Ma!" Natasha whines as she whirls around to look at her mother, who'd been sitting on the sofa watching her and Peggy argue over Declan.

"You were warned about the attitude." Angie replies simply, her voice firm and leaving no room for further backtalk.

When Declan asks if he can take her to her homecoming dance Natasha's on cloud nine. Peggy and Angie are less so, and with good reasons that Natasha just couldn't or wouldn't see. The night isn't what Natasha was hoping for, the teenage rom-com ending she'd daydreamed about turned into a bad dream. They dance, and laugh, and Natasha's having a good time. Then Declan asks if she could use some air and she nods, the school's event room is large and spacious, but full of dancing hormonal teenagers, it's a bit warm, stuffy, and smells of pubescence. They walk through the courtyard to a bench under a tree away from the dance, and sit for a few minutes. Natasha looks up at the stars for a moment before she feels herself being pulled into a kiss.

They'd kissed plenty of times, and Natasha had even let Declan touch her breasts under her shirt but over her bra. She'd been fine with his grabbing her ass, and she wasn't opposed to a denim clan thigh between her legs as they made out. Even now, the brush of his fingers at the hem of her skirt was ok, but when she felt his hand inch past her knee she pushed him back a little, wanting to slow down.

He smiled, he nodded, and he reassured, "Of course, Tasha."

She smiled as she scratched at the hair at the nape of his neck with her manicured nails. A few minutes later they were kissing again, and Declan was leaning in to her more, pinning her to the bench a bit. Something pricked at Natasha's instincts, but it didn't alarm her just yet. Then she felt his hand on her knee again, felt it running up her thigh again, and she pulled out of the kiss again. "Declan."

He hummed, moving his kisses to her neck as his hand slipped to her inner thigh.

"Declan, stop." Natasha said firmly as she pushed on his shoulders.

"It's alright, Tasha." Declan's breath is hot against her neck. "You'll like this, I promise. It feels good."

Natasha freezes for a moment in fear and panic, her brain unable to compute what was happening at first. Then she feels a knuckle brush against the crotch of her panties and instinct meets years of martial arts training and she's grabbing his wrist, jerking his hand out from under dress, and pushing him away. She jumps to her feet, a swirl of emotions raging inside, the strongest of which are anger and fear. He tries to reach out to her, to grab her, and she flips him, breaking his wrist in the process.

"I can't fucking believe you!" She spats at him. "Arugh! Do you know how fucking annoying it is that my mother is right all the damn time?" She fighting off tears as she finishes with, "Stay the fuck away from me, Declan!"

She leaves him laying there, calls for a car from the service her mothers have added her too, and heads home. As the rush of adrenaline began to wane from her system Natasha began to tremble. Her mother had warned her about Declan and she hadn't listened. If she hadn't acted on instinct, hadn't let years of lessons take over, how would things have ended? As the fear starts to set in, her blue-green eyes begin to burn with tears as her throat tightens and her stomach knots. When the car pulls up into her driveway, Natasha hesitates on getting out. She can't face her mothers. She thinks they'll be angry, disappointed, but her heart tells her otherwise. Taking a deep breath Natasha gets out of the car and heads inside. It's not until she's closing the door behind her that she realizes her Mama's car isn't in the drive. She closes the door with a soft click and heads for the stairs. If she can make it to her room then she won't have to deal with it all, she can just hide for a bit, get herself together, but that isn't what she does.

After a few seconds of just standing at the bottom of the stairs she steps back and heads down the hall to her mother's study instead. She can't explain why she knows Peggy is inside, she just feels it. She needs her mothers, but she's afraid; of what she isn't sure. Natasha raises her hand to knock on her mother's door but she can't bring herself to do it. Moving to the side of the door she presses her back against the wall and slowly slides down it to the floor.

Peggy wasn't really concentrating on the busy work laid out in front of her on the desk. She was just trying to distract herself. Something felt uneasy in the pit of her stomach, something that had settled there not long after Natasha had left for the dance. She would have convinced herself she was overreacting but Angie felt it too. While Peggy was trying to use work to keep her mind off things, Angie had decided to go get ice cream despite the fact that they had some in the freezer.

That feeling in Peggy's gut surged up into her heart and she suddenly looked up. Pushing away from her desk she walked over to the door of her study and threw it open. Stepping out into the hall she was startled to find her daughter crumpled on the floor, tears streaming down her cheeks. Peggy bypassed concern at the sight of her daughter and lept right to fear. "Natasha?"

Natasha looked up at her mother and said, "You were right Mum, about him, about everything, you were right."

Peggy dropped to her knees beside her daughter and pulled Natasha into her arms. She had questions, concerns, fears, but what was important in this very moment was Natasha. Holding her daughter in her arms Peggy could feel her trembling. She let her gaze roam over every inch of Natasha checking for injury or any other signs of mistreatment. Finally she couldn't stand it any longer and had to ask, "Baby, did he hurt you? Did he…"

"No." Natasha replied, gently shaking her head against her mother's shoulder. "No, I'm not hurt."

Peggy tightened her hold. She sighed, closed her eyes, kissed her baby's temple and pressed her forehead to the place she'd just kissed. "It's going to be alright, poppet. You're home, you're safe, and Mummy's got you." After several long minutes of kneeling on the floor holding her little girl, Peggy gently began to stand, lifting Natasha up to stand as well. She guided her daughter back down the hall and into the living, helping her to sit on the sofa. She sat beside her daughter and once again pulled her into her arms. "Can you tell me what happened, poppet?"

"I'm so stupid!" Natasha pushed back from her mother and shook her head. "You warned me, again and again, and I wouldn't listen. He was charming and sweet, and I fell for it!" She growled in anger at herself as she put her head in her hands. "So fucking stupid!"

Reaching over Peggy gently replaced Natasha's hands with her own, turning her daughter's face towards her and looked right into her little girl's eyes. "Natasha Elizabeth Carter, stop that right now. You are not stupid." She used her thumbs to whisk away her daughter's tears. "What you are my darling girl is young and inexperienced."

"But you're not." Natasha argued. "And you told me, over and over, and I didn't listen."

"My love," Peggy said gently as she pulled Natasha in and kissed her forehead. "You are also your mothers' daughter, which means you are also very stubborn. None of those things, however, make you stupid."

She waited a few moments, wanting to give Natasha as much reassurance as she could, but then Peggy needed to know what transpired so again she asked Natasha to tell her what happened, but before Natasha could say a word Angie came home. "They were outta the strawberry cheesecake you and Nattie like, English, but they had this new Earl Grey flavor I thought you might like, and I got Nattie something with chucks of brownie in it. I don't know about all these fancy flavors, Peg. I don't think it's gonna take off. What's wrong with just plain ol' chocolate and pistachio?"

Stepping into the living room and seeing her wife and daughter sitting on the sofa, Angie stopped dead in her tracks. The look on their faces, Natasha's blotchy red cheeks, wet from tears, and puffy eyes, squeezed at Angie's heart like a vice. The look in her wife's eyes, the concern and the anger, slammed into Angie like a sledgehammer. Rushing forward, she dropped the bag with the ice cream pints on the coffee table on her way to the sofa. "What's goin' on? Angel? Peggy?"

"I'm not sure of the details yet, love." Peggy said gently as she surrendered their daughter over to Angie's embrace. "But Nattie assures me she's unharmed physically."

"I'm fine, Mama." Natasha told her mother as Angie held her tight. "He's not. I think I might have broken his wrist."

"What happened, Nattie?" Peggy asks again.

Natasha sighs softly, and pulls out of her mama's embrace as she tells them the details. She can't look them in the eyes so she settles her gaze on her Mum's hands, which Peggy has resting in her lap, and watches as her mother's hands ball into tighter and tighter fists. She hesitates at the end, but her mothers encouraged her to go on, so she tells them about feeling him brush against her and how that led to her breaking his wrist. Natasha jumps when Angie springs to her feet.

"I'm gonna kill him!" Angie is angry, and rightfully so. "I'm going to call Frank, Tommy, Gio, and Luca and…"

"Angie." Peggy says firmly, her gaze fixed on her wife as she shakes her head. Now is not the time for them to lose control. Not with Natasha's attention on them, and when their attention should be on her.

"Don't Angie me, Peg!" Angie replies. "I'm gonna find the little bastard and I'm gonna…"

"Angela." This time Peggy's voice is a bit sharper as she cuts her gaze to Natasha who's trembling again and crying into her hands.

"I'm sorry." Natasha whispers. The idea that she made her Ma so upset her first reaction was to call up her brothers to deal with Natasha's bad judgement had her wanting to throw up.

Angie is instantly beside her daughter again and silently berating herself for letting her temper get the better of her. "No, angel, baby you have nothing to be sorry for. This isn't on you baby girl." She took Natasha's face into her hands and looked into her daughter's eyes. "This is on that sorry ass son of a bitch and the people who raised him to be a sorry ass son of a bitch."

While Angie holds their daughter Peggy grabs the abandoned ice cream and takes it to the kitchen to put it away. She makes tea because she needs something to do to calm her own raging emotions. While Angie had allowed the shock and anger to show, Peggy had kept a tight hold on her own. Angie wasn't the only one who wanted to reach out to people who could make the young man regret his actions. It would be so easy for her to pick up the phone and make a call and have it, have him, taken care of.

"Don't worry about it baby." Angie said as Peggy came back into the room. "I doubt he's going to tell anyone, he'd have to admit that a girl got the better of him."

"You're Mama's right, poppet." Peggy said as she held out a mug of sweet peppermint tea for Natasha to take. "You acted in self defense."

When Natasha goes up to shower and change for bed Peggy does slip into her study, and she does make a call just in case the boy does try to twist things around in an attempt to get back at Natasha. She reassures Angie in hushed whispers that she has it handled, and there's no need to involve her brothers. They spend the rest of the evening on the couch, and Natasha sleeps with them, not that Peggy sleeps. She lays beside her daughter and watches her. She was supposed to protect Natasha and yet here they were.

"Don't do that, Peg." Angie whispers in the dark. "Don't blame yourself."

"I'm meant to keep her safe." Peggy whispers back as she gently brushes at Natasha's red curls.

"You do." Angie reassures. "Finding the strength to handle what happened tonight, she learned that from you, that's how you keep her safe."

"She doesn't only get her strength from me." Peggy reaches across their sleeping daughter to brush Angie's cheek, and then repeats the motion with Natasha.

Natasha withdraws a little afterward, and Peggy and Angie do their best to help her process everything. They have long talks and share their own experiences so that Natasha understands she isn't alone. It burns them both that they have to have conversations like this with their daughter, that they have to explain how the world really works when you're a woman. Sure things were improving, the times were better now than they had been when they were young women, but things were changing for the better fast enough. In time, Natasha shakes it off and becomes more and more herself again. It's a little rough in places as she tries to toughen herself up and acts out a bit, but it's nothing the family can't weather.