Wanda lays with Natasha in bed, feeling the other woman dragging her fingers through her thick hair.
Natasha is her life line at the moment. One of the only Avengers to have grown comfortable around her. . . The only one she's grown comfortable around.
She lays with her head in the other woman's lap and wishes this moment could last forever.
It might be selfish to wish for that but she wants it just the same. This feeling of warmth and gentleness. . .
Natasha has a lot of hard angles but here she's soft too and Wanda feels special to get to see this side of her. Special because Natasha allowes so few people to see this side of her and she realizes herself that this kind of intimacy, this kind of contact is precious and rare.
She remembers when she had a mother to stroke her hair and thinks now that all connections are fragile and fleeting.
"You're breathing differently." Natasha say's as she looks down.
She opens her eyes and see's the other woman gazing down at her. "I was just thinking." She whispers.
Natasha smiles softly and nods. "Good or bad?"
She shrugs and feels the heat from the other woman's body against her own, comforting her, steadying her, connecting her to reality and the physical world. "Not really either one."
Natasha strokes her hair back from her face.
They're in Natasha's room and there are candles burning around them, warm and soft. . . connecting them to a kind of basic and simple world. . . Connecting them to each other without the all revealing brightness of electric light.
There were black outs when she was a girl in Sokovia. She can remember her childhood home light by the soft, yellow of candles and how her family would congregate in the same room. Her parents had tried to make them believe that it was a game when they were small but she and her brother had always known the truth.
You couldn't hide the noises in the streets or the whispers at school.
You couldn't hide the headlines.
She remembers the night, house light only by candles when she'd seen a tank go by. Her mother had pulled her away from the window, held her tight and tried to tell her it was nothing but Wanda had known.
Now the candles are just for fun and her house and childhood home is gone.
If she has a home at all it might be here with Natasha who kisses her hand and studies the lines on it.
"Can you tell what I'm thinking by how I breath?" She asks then, raising her eyebrows as she looks up at the other woman.
Natasha laughs softly. "No but I can guess and I can feel when you think of something else."
She can't say the same thing. Natasha is too hard to read or maybe she's just bad at reading her. . . most likely it's a combination of the two things.
"Just by my breathing?" She asks, letting a smile creep into her voice.
Natasha smiles too. "Yes and when your eyes move and the way you tilt your head sometimes. . . the way your posture shifts." It's sweet but the truth is that Natasha has been trained to see these things. She's been trained to recognize them in other people. It's not her fault. There are people that made Natasha but then there are people that made Wanda too. They have that in common.
"Is it easier when you know what someone's thinking?" She asks.
Natasha laughs softly. "Not really. I never know what someone is thinking, just that they're thinking."
"But you can guess."
"I can make an educated guess."
Wanda nods and then turns over and buries her face in Natasha's lap, wanting to stay forever . "I wish I could do that." She say's, breath warm against hot skin.
Natasha runs her fingers through her hair. "I could teach you."
She shrugs because it's all just talk. Mostly what she wants is to be close to this woman, for the candles to burn forever and for the door to stay shut. She wants this moment to go on forever because the alternative is facing reality and reality isn't kind. It's so unkind.
Natasha's hand glides down the back of her neck and to her shoulders. . . her fingers slip under the back of her shirt and she can feel the other woman tracing the knobs of her spine at her neck, pressing lightly and then hard.
"You're warm." Natasha say's and the feel of her finger tips is so good Wanda closes her eyes against it.
"It's the candles." She say's.
Natasha nods and kisses the top of her head, sighing softly as Wanda sits up so they can lean more comfortably against one another.
The room is light in soft yellow light and it doesn't remind her at all of her childhood home. There's too many miles between here and then. . . Too much of everything and too much pain.
The lights flicker and their hair melds together softly, almost the same color in the yellow light.
Wanda closes her eyes and feels safe.
She wonders what Natasha could possibly get from her and feels the other woman tracing lines down her arm with the pads of her fingers. She must get something because she keeps coming back, because she keeps allowing this to happen.
Wanda holds onto that feeling and smiles softly into the night.
"You're breathing is peaceful." Natasha whispers into her ear, lifting a strand of hair.
It tickles and Wanda smiles some more.
It's been a long time since she smiled so freely. It's been a long time since she had anything at all to smile about.
She doesn't know it when she falls asleep but Natasha does and when she does the other woman pulls a blanket over her and stares at her for along time, their legs pressed together, their bodies sharing heat and the candles burning out around them.
She see's the first one go out from the corner of her eye and wishes, like Wanda that these moments could last. Wishes she knew why the girl trusts her so much when she herself can only think of her wrong doings.
Whatever the reason is, she doesn't want to break that trust. It means so very much to her and it makes her feel just a little bit less like a weapon. . . just a little bit more human.
She falls asleep too, tucked against Wanda and presses her face into the other woman's shoulders, wanting her just as much as the girl wants her and when the last candle burns out they're both asleep.