A.N. : Chapter modified, the text wasn't correct. Sorry for any mistake, R&R please! Enjoy
They went to the living room with grins on their face, Natasha pushing Kate's shoulder playfully. Tanya and Irina were seated on the couch facing the fireplace and Eleazar was in an armchair, Carmen sitting on his lap. The redhead smiled at them, going to sit next to Tanya on the couch. Kate looked at her with her eyebrows furrowed and motioned her head to the free sofa, wanting Natasha to come and sit next to her but the spy just smirked at her. Kate took a seat in the couch, alone, and pouted like a dejected child. Tanya rolled her eyes at the scene, a smile tugging at her lips. Carmen disappeared in a flash and came back with a mug and a plate filled with chocolate chip cookies. Natasha's eyes zoomed on the cookies and she tried to be discreet with her excitement.
"There you go, dear." she said with a smile, placing the plate and mug on the coffee table.
"Thank you." the spy smiled back. Taking a sip of the hot chocolate, she moaned at the taste.
"Mm, this is delicious!" Carmen seemed extremely satisfied and sat back on Eleazar's lap.
Kate dropped a cushion she was moving at the sound the redhead made but quickly picked it back up, acting innocently. Irina hid her laugh with a cough.
"So, what are you doing for a living, Natasha?" asked Eleazar.
"Uh, I work with the Avengers." answered the redhead absently. She took a bite of a cookie, had to force herself not to moan at the sweet taste and tried not to send crumbs on Tanya beside her. Having been successful with her mission she sent a smile at the blonde eying her critically. She took the mug from the table and looked at Eleazar, sending him a guilty smile because she wasn't very attentive but chocolate chip cookies were one of her weaknesses.
"What are those Avengers ?" said Carmen. "It doesn't ring a bell."
Natasha put down her mug, her eyebrows furrowed and she tilted her head slightly.
"You've never heard of the Avengers? The team with Iron Man, Captain America, the Hulk?" asked Natasha. She looked at Kate, searching for a spark of recognition or something. She just seemed confused. "No? Tony Stark, genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist?" she added with a smile, remembering the conversation where Stark described himself as such.
"I'm sorry. Those names are not familiar to me." Carmen looked curious.
Weird. That was really weird. Without wanting to be arrogant, they were really famous. Even more so since Natasha dropped all H.Y.D.R.A. and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secrets on the internet. The spy got up from the couch and started thinking, her brain on overdrive. She was missing something big.
"Are you alright ?" Tanya asked, putting a hand on the spy's shoulder gently.
Natasha massaged her temples, searching for the missing piece of the puzzle. Suddenly having an idea, she put her plan on the road.
"I need a phone, a laptop and a bottle of vodka." She said. Before adding. "Please."
Carmen rushed in the kitchen and Kate got up from the couch, exchanged a look with her sisters before disappearing a second and reappearing with the requested items. She held them out silently but Natasha just stared at it, raising her eyebrows.
"Old school?" she asked.
"…what?" Tanya seemed to get more and more confused.
"This phone. Does it know how to call at least?" laughed the redhead.
"I brought it a few weeks ago, it's a Blackberry 7290." scoffed the coven leader before adding proudly. "It even has the Bluetooth."
Natasha paused, looked around her and began to notice some things. The furniture didn't seemed old but it wasn't modern, even the vampire's outfits weren't really modern. Eyes back on the items in Kate's arm, she saw the outdated phone and laptop. She took a breath. The setting was the same as in the series on the early 2000s.
"What's today's date?" she whispered.
"Um, January 13." answered Irina.
"…what year?"
This time, Tanya seemed to make a connection as well. "2005. January 13, 2005."
"Oh, my god." Natasha said in horror, then took a seat in the couch closest to her and put her head in her hands. Kate squatted down in front of her and touched the spy's knees.
"What is it? What's going on?" she asked, worried.
Natasha didn't answer, trying to remember every detail of her meeting with Dr. Strange. She got up, took the old items and set them on the couch. Opened the laptop on the couch and squatting down in front of it, she quickly opened a web page and began to search. She typed 'Iron Man', nothing. She tried 'Stark Industries', nothing at all. She tried every member of the Avengers, with no result. The spy shook her head, almost trying to pinch her arm to wake up. Unfortunately, it was no dream. She sat back against the couch, legs on the floor. Kate sat next to her, talking, worry in her eyes, but Natasha couldn't hear anything.
After a few minutes, she raised her head and saw the coven members talking with each other to rapidly and too low for her to understand. Kate suddenly appeared in front of her, a glass of water in hand.
"Are you okay, baby?" the blonde asked softly.
Natasha blinked. "It's worse than I thought it was."
"…why?"
"He sent me through time." she began to laugh.
"Who?" Irina asked, still confused.
Natasha got up from the floor and accepted the water, took a deep breath and tried to calm down, she looked kind of crazy laughing like that.
"We had a call at the compound and were send to rescue civilians after an explosion. Tony Stark, Steve Rogers and I went to secure the place, save the civilians stuck under the rubble and eliminate the threat. There were H.Y.D.R.A. soldiers everywhere. Steve went to another location, to stop an other bomb or something. Then, a rocket hit Tony square in the chest and sent him flying. His armor damaged, I managed to restart his heart but he couldn't move. So I got up and lured the soldiers away from him. I ended up in an alley and a weird guy with a cape came up out of nowhere. He told me that I had to choose someplace to go to 'save my life' but I couldn't hear what he was saying after that because of the gunshots. Next thing I know, I end up in the middle of the forest with five minions of H.Y.D.R.A." she explained.
Everyone looked confused, horrified even.
"I'm not following." said Kate. Natasha looked at her calmly. She took the bottle of vodka Carmen put on the coffee table and took a long sip. The familiar burning in her throat calmed her a little.
"This morning, when I got up, it was January 13." After a second, she added. "2015."
Later that night, Natasha was laying down on Kate's bed staring at the ceiling silently, lost in thoughts. The sun was long gone, the moon taking place and slightly illuminating the room. She was sad. Not even because Strange sent her to an another universe, but because she found herself be ripped off the first real choice she made in her life. All her life, she had learned to be a weapon. The Red Room had manipulated her, making her do things that have stained her hands with so much blood. So she tried the road to redemption, helping people through S.H.I.E.L.D., risking her life with the Avengers, but it never quite washed away her sins. And now, she was in a world that didn't knew her, where she never did anything wrong or bad. Where she could maybe start over. She never thought it was a possibility but now that she was here, she thought that, maybe, this was it for her. Maybe this was what she was looking for all along. She was interrupted in her line of thoughts with a soft knock on the door and Kate's head popping inside.
"Can I come in?" the blonde whispered, not to disturb the spy.
"Well, it is your room." said back the redhead, softly. Kate entered and closed the door behind her, the mattress sank a little when Kate lay down next to her. They stayed in silence for a few minutes, the only noise being the steady breathing of the spy.
"Are you hungry?" asked the blonde.
"No." chuckled Natasha. "Are you?" she asked, turning her head to the side to watch the blonde.
"Why, you feel generous?" smirked the vampire. Natasha smirked back.
"Do you see me like a big squirrel or something?"
The blonde laughed. "Nah." Then added with a suggestive raising of eyebrows. "Not that you don't look good enough to eat, though."
Natasha turned on her side to face the vampire and playfully punch her shoulder. Kate turned to her side too and flashed her a smile, the redhead had to fight her own smile from her face in response. They stayed like that for a while, just gazing in each other's eyes. Green lost in dark gold. The teasing smile had slipped from Kate's face, a contented one taking place. The spy raised a hand and let the tip of a finger trace the vampire's jawline, her cheekbones, forehead, her nose. She traced the soft lips who parted under her finger, finally stopping on the blonde's chin. She could feel the burning of Kate's eyes trying to catch hers but she kept her eyes down.
"Why do I feel like I've know you for all my life?" she whispered, not wanting to break the bubble they were in. Kate moved closer to her, took her hand in hers and placed a kiss on it.
"We are soulmates. Your soul recognizes mine even if your suborn brain doesn't completely trust it." she said, smiling teasingly. "I know your heart beats faster when you see me. I can hear it speeding up when I smile at you, or when you tease me. I can hear your breath hitch when I'm close to you." she purred.
Natasha rolled her eyes, not phased at all by the poor flirting. "Yes, Kate, you are irresistible. I'm literally melting. Can't you see?" she said, flopping her arms around. A smile appeared on her face.
"Mm. Well, it seems I succeeded at making you smile at least." The blonde laughed.
"At what cost?" scoffed the redhead. Kate patted her on the arm and rolled her eyes.
"It wasn't that bad." she smiled. Natasha noticed how close they were, their nose almost touching. The vampire's eyes were fixed on her lips and she could swear she was leaning in. So, she hit Kate in the face with her (too long) sleeve and the blonde scrunched her nose, pushing the offending arm away.
"What was that for?" she whined.
"You were getting too comfortable." smirked Natasha. The blonde scoffed but didn't respond.
After a few minutes of silence, Kate got up on her elbows. "You should get under the covers, it's getting late." The redhead didn't argue, the long day had exhausted her. She slipped under the sheets and hugged a pillow to her head, breathing the sweet cinnamon and orange scent. Casting a glance at the vampire, she saw her look attentively.
"Comfortable?" the blonde asked.
"Mm, very." she whispered. Natasha's eyes were closing, weakly trying to fight the sleep. The mattress dipped when the vampire got up and Natasha felt cold lips on her cheek and a soft murmur that sounded like "Goodnight, my love." then, sleep took her.
"…okay, what about this one?" Kate put the t-shirt against herself to show it off. Natasha eyed her critically. Fashionable clothes in 2004 were not the same style as in 2015, not even close. The jeans were low rise jeans, not high waisted like she liked them and they liked to put on several layers with long sleeves and short sleeves t-shirts of different colors. All of it giving something horrible that the redhead did not want to wear at all. She mumbled a "ugly" and hurried away from the blonde who was already looking for another garment.
They decided that it would be easier for Natasha to have her own clothes and not Kate's because they were obviously too large and not her style. After two days of looking like a penguin, they took the car and went to the mall. Natasha couldn't be more happy about it but the happiness quickly faded when she saw the clothes in the store. She was desperately trying to find clothes to her liking and avoided Kate and her horrible proposals like the plague. The store was not very crowded, a bunch of teens and a men who trailed behind his wife with a bored expression on his face. The vampire had apparently made it a mission to find her some outfits and she took it quite seriously.
Natasha managed to find a pair of black pants and a simple long sleeved white t-shirt which she liked well enough, she folded the clothes and kept searching. After a few minutes and more items found, Kate came next to her with her arms full of clothes and a big smile on her face.
"You're going to love what I found!" she said with visible glee and Natasha suppressed a groan at the sight. She casted a weary glance at the pile, as if the bright colors were annoying her.
"I see a little too much pink for the "Only black and brown, Kate" rule I gave you." the spy said with a bored expression. The blonde let out a "Oh!", threw the pile on the ground and started digging in it, visibly trying to find a specific item. Natasha had to turn her head away to stop the smile coming on her face, the blonde was annoying, yes, but she was also very cute, like a little puppy. Her heart was warming at the blonde after two full days with her and her family, she found herself become quickly attached to Kate, not wishing to be far away from the vampire, thinking of her from the moment she wakes up until she goes to bed. It became almost embarrassing with how corny it was. If Clint knew, she would never live it down.
"Got it!" Kate threw her arms in the air in triumph and gave Natasha a black leather jacket, blazer style. The redhead raised an eyebrow, impressed. The jacket was quite long, rather fitted at the waist and had two front pockets. She liked it instantly. "Now this, I like." she smirked. She saw from the corner of her eyes a woman shaking her head with a hand over her mouth in disbelief, moving closer to them. "I'll let you handle the desperate saleswoman and go try everything I have." the proud look on Kate's face quickly faded as she glanced at the pile on the floor, then at the saleswoman, then at Natasha with a scared expression.
"Don't leave me with the scary lady." she whispered and took a step closer to the redhead. The spy smirked and took a step back. "I hope she doesn't kick you out, if we never see each other again…" she laughed and walked away quickly, not wanting to be in the war zone.
She spotted the fitting rooms and as she walked in she saw a young man in his underwear with a white short sleeved t-shirt knocking on the door of his fitting cabin. Casting a frightened look over his shoulder, he whispered/yelled "Hurry up, dude, there's someone." Natasha smirked at the boy and when he saw her correctly he had to take a second look, his eyes widening. He seemed to be in his early twenties with short black hair. "A boy or a girl?" said the voice behind the door. The mouth slightly agape, the boy gaped at the spy and muttered lamely. "A-a g-girl. I-I mean, uh, a-a woman?" The redhead just smirked, clearly enjoying herself. A sound of metal on the floor came across the room. "Oh, shit, I dropped the key in the pile of clothes…" the guy behind the door said, clearly with a laugh. "WHAT?! Are you serious ?" responded the other, clearly embarrassed.
Natasha took a step closer to the boy in his underwear and he turned towards her, joining his hands over his groin. "Hi, are you locked out or are you here for fun?" she said with a serious expression.
"Uhhh… No, a-actually, my friend lost the key. H-he licks, uh, looks, for it. He looks for the key." he stuttered. Just a second later, a romantic music was heard from the 'still' closed room. Natasha had to suppress a smile and the boy looked more and more embarrassed by the second. "Ah, yes, he seems in a hurry to open the door for you." she said, still with no expression on her face. She took a step towards an empty fitting room and asked. "I'm Natasha. And you are?" The boy seemed lost and overwhelmed. "Uhh, I'm Adam." he said, looking at her like he couldn't believe she was talking to him.
"You have very cute underwear, Adam. I love it" she winked and closed the door, leaving a gaping young boy with dinosaurs boxer shorts staring at the empty space.
