Work Text:
Love is fucking hard , Natasha thinks. Love is hard, and it sucks.
Love fucking sucks , she thinks again. Because she’s out here in the Atlanta cold, staring at the sun rising and pretending that love didn’t fucking suck.
For the longest time, she didn’t really know what love was. The most exposure she had was watching terrible soap operas or movies with Clint or Thor whilst they were lounging around in the tower.
“Natasha.” Thor had asked her, about four glasses deep in the mysterious Asgardian alcohol. He waved towards the TV with his glass, spilling some onto the carpet, where they were watching Christmas Hallmark movies, “Do your people struggle to fall in love easily?”
She snorted into her glass before answering. “I don’t think I’m the most qualified to answer that, Thor.”
“Are you not in love with Maria?” And said it in such an innocent way, like he didn’t just turn Natasha’s world upside down.
Because A. She was sure it wasn’t obvious, and B. It was true.
She’s not denying it, she was in love with Maria Hill. She would always be in love with Maria Hill. She just loved Maria Hill a little less now, especially as they were going through a pseudo-divorce.
“It’s complicated.” She figures there's no point lying. Thor isn’t one to gossip, or spread rumours around so it’s probably safe. “I am in love with this alcohol though.” She holds it up, and takes a long sip, trying to change the conversation .
Thor doesn’t catch on at all, because he continues talking. “I never understood Midgardian’s way of–how do you say it– saying ‘I love you’ being a big deal.”
Natasha laughs at Thor’s bluntness and naivety. “Is that so?”
“Well you see I told Banner I loved him, and he stuttered and stared at me like it was the most crazy thing in the world?”
She prompted him to go on, making a gesture with her hands.
“Then he called me an idiot and we made out.” Thor finishes.
“So what we have learned today is to tell our partners we love them, wait for them to call us idiots and then make out.” Natasha remarked. “Simple.”
“It works!” He replied confidently and took a sip on the alcohol. “How do you think Banner and I started dating?”
Maria walks out onto the deck where Natasha was staring out into the distance. She passes Natasha the vodka bottle, and takes it silently. “Well that went to shit.” She said humorlessly.
She doesn’t respond. Frankly, Natasha could care less about the mission. She’s tired, her body is aching everywhere and she wants to sleep for a week straight.
She doesn’t want to face Maria, especially not right now when her emotions are all over the place, and she bets she couldn’t get a sentence out without her voice breaking, so she doesn’t. She hops down from the bench she was perched on and makes her way inside, bumping into Sharon on the way in.
“You know,” Sharon steps outside onto the deck and immediately regrets it. It’s way too cold for her to be outside. “She used to drive me insane, I swear every sentence that came out of her mouth was about you.”
She passes Maria a beer. “Sharon, you won’t believe what Hill did. Or, Maria thinks she’s right protecting me, Maria said this, Maria said that.”
She gives Sharon a half hearted smile and takes a sip of her beer. “She was insufferable the first couple of years.” Maria replied.
“It got so bad, every time we went out for drinks I had to implement a No talking about Maria Hill rule.” She laughs fondly. “Of course, that didn’t last long, the drunker she got, she talked even more about you.”
Maria looks away at Sharon’s gaze. She doesn’t want to talk about Natasha or how Natasha used to talk about her.
“I’m glad you guys stopped hating each other. Otherwise I would have suffered alcohol poisoning at least twice.” Sharon replies before leaving Maria alone again.
She watches the sun rise across the lake, and slowly nurses her beer as she does. It’s nice out here. If she wasn’t Maria Hill, Deputy Director of SHIELD and she just was Maria Hill, normal civilian , she thinks she would live here.
It’s quiet, unlike New York. The people out here seem content with their life, living it out here in the country when they could be in the hustle and bustle of the city.
Selfishly, in another life, if things between her and Natasha were ok, maybe this is where they would have retired. They could raise a couple animals here, and maybe even a child.
Maybe they would be happy.
Sharon breaks her out from her thoughts as she knocks on the glass door a couple times to get Maria’s attention. “Sam just texted me saying, and I quote– ‘bucky got himself thrown into jail for defending gay rights in jamaica. please help the idiot.’” She sighed heavily. “So now I’m about to fly out to Jamaica and rescue their asses. It shouldn’t be too long, I’ll be back by five tomorrow.” She looked down at her watch, showing it to be four in the morning. “Which means I’ll be running on zero hours of sleep, and they owe me a whole coffee store.”
Maria nods. “Be safe.”
Sharon rolls her eyes at her, “Always. When have I not been safe?”
“Uh let’s see,” Natasha’s voice responds. “Hong Kong. Sydney. Wellington–”
“Ok. Don’t kill each other.” Sharon cuts in. “I don’t want to come back and have to get rid of blood stains on the nice hardwood.” She calls over her shoulder before leaving Maria and Natasha alone.
Maria internally groans at the prospect of staying in the same house overnight with Natasha, and heads to the fridge to get another beer. Might as well get drunk as I possibly can , she thinks.
Natasha follows her mindlessly and she hands over a bottle of beer to her. They drink quietly before Natasha speaks up.
“We should tell them.” Natasha echoes quietly more to herself than Maria.
“What?” Maria asks, confused.
Natasha uses her beer to signal between them two. “You know?” She replies with an imperceptible tilt of the head.
“Tell them what Natasha?” Maria sighed, setting her beer down on the counter. “That we’ve been married for seven years, divorced for three, but not really because paperwork is really fucking annoying , and we would have to let SHIELD know about it? That’ll go down great Romanoff.”
Natasha bites her cheek at being called Romanoff. It reminds her of before , before they were dating, before they were married, before they were divorced. Now it seems to be a constant state of pain between them.
“I can’t play pretend anymore Maria.” She admits quietly, in such a truthful and broken tone it forces Maria to look at her. “I can’t pretend that we’re just coworkers in front of others, when it makes me ache every time I see you. You’ve started this war inside my soul, I want you to consume me and wreck my heart into two every time you dare to look at me.”
“Fuck, Maria. It hurts so much that sometimes I still think I love you. And I don’t think that it isn’t untrue.” Natasha looks up, and Maria can’t help but notice she’s hurting.
It’s such a truthful and guilty admission that Maria’s rarely heard before. Maria turns away and downs the rest of her beer before answering.
“Ok.” Maria says quietly. “You can tell them we’re married, divorced, whatever you want.”
“Ok.” Natasha echoes quietly.
“I’m going to find food for us.” Maria tells, as she pushes herself off the counter. She doesn’t want to be stuck here anymore. Stuck in this emotional hellhole that has already caused them both so much pain.
“Natasha?” Maria asks before opening the door to leave. Because fuck it, she thinks . Might as well.
Natasha looks up, eyebrows furrowed. “Yeah?”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you feel that way.” Maria replies truthfully, her hands burning as she twists the knob. “And I’m sorry that I feel the same.” She waits a beat to get a reply back but she never does.
Because Natasha Romanoff has shattered her beer on the kitchen floor, in an effort to stop Maria from leaving the cabin. She’s seen it happen once and it ruined her. She’s not letting it happen again.
She grabs Maria’s wrist and stops her from opening the door, and uses the other hand to force her weight onto it, as extra security that she won’t go, leaving Maria to be pushed up against the door by Natasha.
“Don’t leave.” Natasha whispers and leans her forehead on Maria. “Please.”
Maria nods slowly, and brings a hand to wipe Natasha’s tears. She didn’t even know she was crying. “I’m sorry.”
“We’re such idiots.” Natasha pulls back and laughs. She’s not sure why she’s laughing, she thinks it’s partly due to nerves and hysteria combined.
Maria doesn’t say anything, just raises her eyebrows and stares fondly. Natasha eventually stops laughing and smiles at Maria.
“Please don’t go again.” Natasha says, stroking Maria’s cheek with her hand. “I can’t go through this again, Maria I can’t lose you again–”
Maria leans in and kisses Natasha to stop talking. It’s so gentle, and Natasha misses this. How every lingering touch and stolen kisses they had felt so comforting, warm, how it felt like home.
“Natasha. I’ll stay as long as you want me to, and even if you want me to leave I’ll stay.” Maria said quietly. “I’m not making the same mistake.”, reaffirming what Natasha had thought.
Natasha leaned her head into the crook of Maria’s neck. “Ok.” Her breath tickled Maria’s neck. “I’m tired.”
“Let’s go to bed.” And so they did.
Maria dragged along a half awake Natasha, tucking her into bed before leaving the room to clean and lock down the rest of the house.
When she returned, it stunned Maria how Natasha was instantly able to move and wrap herself around Maria.
“Go to sleep Lyubov moya .” Maria whispered. “We’ll be alright.”
•••
Sharon isn’t surprised when she returns back to the cabin with Sam and Bucky in tow, and walks past Maria and Natasha sleeping next to each other.
Maria’s already awake, on her phone whilst Natasha is still sleeping next to her. Maria smiles at Sharon.
“We’re leaving at seven. And thank you for making me win the bet, Maria.” Sharon whispers happily.
Maria rolls her eyes, she isn’t surprised at all that there was a bet going around and makes a shooing motion for Sharon to leave.
She looks down and Natasha’s starting to stir. “Maria?” She asks sleepily.
“Hey.” Maria placed a forehead kiss. “How are you feeling?” She asks as she brushes strands of hair out of her eyes.
“Hmm.” Natasha smiles. “Like I have the best, most understanding woman next to me in bed.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard so many compliments in one sentence.” Maria teased.
“Oh yeah?” Natasha leant up and brought Maria’s face closer to hers and kissed her. “You’re beautiful.” Kiss. “You’re smart.” Kiss. “When you do that thing with your eyebrow when you talk with people you dislike, it makes me want to drag out into a closet and make out till we both grow tired.”
Maria pulled back from Natasha. “What thing?” She asked, her right eyebrow slightly lifting up.
“The thing you’re doing right now!” Natasha replied, and pulled Maria down for another kiss.
“Ok lovebirds!” Sharon’s voice rang down the hall. “Stop making out, or I’ll make Bucky come out from the car.”
“He’s very annoyed!” They hear Sam yell from the kitchen.
“When we get home,” Natasha points at Maria as they both get out of the bed. “I am going to push you up on a wall and kiss you senseless.”
“I look forward to it, Agent Romanoff.” Maria smirked.
“Now, Romanoff-Hill’s.” Sharon’s stern voice again interrupts. “You can make out later.” She said before walking past and throwing duffle bags at them.
“We gotta get Sharon a girlfriend.” Natasha laughed in response.
“I heard that!” She called out over her shoulder.
“Good!” Natasha yelled back in response. “I look forward to our double dates!”
•••
When they arrive back at New York they both pretend not to laugh at Fury’s response at Bucky’s short stint in a Jamaican cell. They both also pretend not to see Fury and May not-so-subtly sliding over a $20 bill to Sharon.
Thor stops Natasha the next time they see each other down the hallway. “I see my love advice worked.” He said smugly.
“Oh shut up.” She replied. “Send me the invitation to yours and Bruce’s wedding then we’ll talk.”
“Wait.” Natasha throws out her arm to stop Thor leaving. “How did you know Maria and I were together?”
“It’s easy. You two always look for each other and give each other hand signals. You don’t do that to anyone else.” He says simply before heading off to find Bruce.
He’s right of course. They do give each other subtle hand signals when they can’t openly communicate.
So when she catches her wife’s eyes across the room, looking bored as ever during debriefing she knows what to do. Moving her hand up against her heart, where she knows Maria can see it, she gives the slightest three taps with her fingers.
I love you.