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softgreengrass · 2 months

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Shattered

Kate Bishop x Yelena Belova

Summary: Kate finds herself in a sticky situation.

Warnings: mind control, choking

Word Count: 1.2K

A/N: short and sweet and also there is no context behind this ur just dropped into the middle of the action so. enjoy

The Red Room hadn’t died. It never would, the same way HYDRA wouldn’t. There would always be survivors to scrounge through the rubble, to sprout off a new branch. This time, the scientists had survived. The ones who knew exactly how Yelena worked, who had her brain and her nerves mapped out, who had planted kill switches and failsafes deep inside of her.

Yelena grits her teeth, deadly gaze set straight onto Kate. There’s no question in Kate’s mind: she is about to die.

Yelena jumps at her, swinging a kick out at Kate’s feet. Her fists are a blur, colliding with Kate’s ribs and gut and jaw. Kate fights back, manages to land a hit here and there, but she’s outclassed. Blood fills her mouth and stains her teeth. She grasps for the trick arrowheads in her pocket, the ones she had been tinkering with all morning, and pierces one into Yelena’s shoulder.

It electrocutes her. She convulses briefly, giving Kate a chance to step back and suck in a few breaths. But then Yelena forces her arm up and yanks it out, tearing her flesh in the process. For a moment Kate is overcome with guilt.

With a growl, Yelena wraps a hand around Kate’s throat and squeezes. Her breath is hot and familiar, but her eyes are distant. Cold. Her other arm pushes her back until they reach a wall. Kate thrashes helplessly.

“Please,” Kate croaks, her vision already fading at the edges. “Lena, please, don’t-”

“Shut up!” Yelena spits, shoving Kate back and letting her head bounce off of brick.

She’s run out of oxygen. She’s run out of oxygen and now she’s seeing stars, and she’s pretty sure her rib is fractured, and Yelena is just staring into her eyes, angry. But it’s not Yelena, not really.

In last-ditch desperation, Kate pretends to pass out. It’s something she always thought about when watching movies — the bad guy always lets go when the victim passes out, so why don’t they just fake it? It’s not hard to go limp, physically. But it feels like giving up, and that goes against everything in Kate’s bones.

Yelena’s hand releases. It leaves Kate’s skin cold.

Kate collapses onto the floor and doesn’t dare open her eyes, even as she hears Yelena walk away. She forces herself to take quiet breaths, not gasp the way she desperately needs to, and screws her eyes shut to will away the look Yelena gave her. She doesn’t move.

A voice pulls her into consciousness, harsh and whispered. Kate has the most excruciating headache of her life.

“What the hell happened?” Clint asks, squatting down beside her.

She coughs.

“Jesus Christ, kid. Do you think you can stand up?”

A couple of doctors check her out, but she’s released from the hospital the same day with strict orders to rest. It’s convenient, really. Nothing to do but lay on her couch and think about her situationship nearly murdering her.

The day she gets a knock on her door, her bruises are healing. The handprint on her neck is still distinct, purplish-yellow, and her black eye is more of a maroon eye. She’s gotten bored of Survivor binges.

She flinches when she opens the door and sees Yelena. Then she feels bad for flinching.

“Hi,” Yelena says softly, frowning. “Can I come in?”

Kate’s self-preservation instinct is screaming no, clawing at the door to try to push it closed, but it loses. She swallows and steps aside.

They sit facing each other on Kate’s couch. No matter how hard she tries, she can’t look into Yelena’s eyes without seeing that cold, lethal stare. So she looks down instead.

“I’m so sorry,” Yelena breathes, her voice weak and vulnerable. “I… I didn’t want to hurt you, I would never hurt you.”

But you did, Kate catches herself thinking. She shakes her head, says scratchily, “It wasn’t you.”

Yelena glances down at Kate’s throat. Her eyes lock on to the bruise, widening immediately. “Oh god. I-I did that?”

Kate immediately wishes she had worn a scarf. “It wasn’t you.”

And then, Kate can’t believe what she sees. Yelena Belova’s eyes fill with tears. “I’m so sorry, Kate, I didn’t mean to-”

“It wasn’t you,” Kate repeats, firmly this time. Her gaze hardens. “It was them. And I’m not going to let them do that to you again.”

“I could’ve killed you,” Yelena whispers, oblivious to Kate’s words.

“You didn’t.” Probably by pure chance, but still. “Yelena, you didn’t.”

Yelena purses her lips, still refusing to let any tears fall. She’s never hated herself more.

Kate doesn’t know what to do. As much as she wants to pull Yelena into her arms, to promise to her that nothing has changed and everything is going to be okay, she can’t. Not when the thought of Yelena’s hands on her makes her skin crawl.

“How did you… come back?”

“I don’t know,” Yelena mutters. “I woke up in a SHIELD lab. I, I wanted to find you, and then Clint said that I-” her voice catches. “That I hurt you.”

Something swells in Kate’s chest. “Stop saying that.”

“I’m sorry.”

Kate closes her eyes, slumping back into the couch. Yelena uses the opportunity to wipe her eyes and swallow the lump in her throat. If someone had told her a few months ago that she would be falling apart just because she beat someone up, she would’ve slit their throat.

“Do they know what caused it?” Kate asks, keeping her eyes shut.

Yelena exhales. “Not really. A chemical of some kind. In the smoke bomb.”

“Was it just… were you going to kill anyone you saw? Or was it just me?”

Yelena wishes she knew the answer. “It couldn’t have just been you, Kate.”

She opens her eyes.

“I didn’t know you when they programmed me,” Yelena states, trying to convince herself as much as Kate. “It couldn’t just be you.”

“Okay,” Kate says softly. Suddenly, anger surges through her. Someone programmed Yelena. Someone hijacked her brain, her free will. Took away her power. She decides right then that she’ll make them pay, even if it’s the last thing she does. The rage burns through her and fogs her vision.

“Kate,” Yelena’s voice cuts through. She’s close to Kate now, searching for a hint of anything on her face. Kate’s not one to zone out. “Say something.”

She blinks and finds Yelena’s wide eyes. “Sorry.”

Yelena furrows her eyebrows. “You are thinking about something.”

“I’m not going to let them do that to you again,” Kate says sharply.

The air between them is tense. Yelena knows that’s not possible, that one person can’t protect her from the Red Room’s endless reach, but at the same time knowing that someone wants to try brings a lump back to her throat.

“If it happens again, I don’t want you near me,” Yelena rasps.

“I’m not abandoning you.”

Yelena exhales slowly. “I won’t let myself hurt you-”

“I’m not letting them do that to you again,” Kate repeats. “And you can’t stop that.”

“I’m sorry,” Yelena mumbles, almost whimpers, and Kate doesn’t care about her skin crawling anymore.

She pulls her into a crushing hug, presses herself as close to Yelena as she can, feels herself immediately calm down. Yelena closes her eyes and runs her hands across Kate’s back. They sink deeper into each other, breathe in the fact that they’re both alive and okay. It might not be that way forever.

#bishova #kate bishop #yelena belova #kate bishop x yelena belova #angst #marvel #mcu #bishova angst #comfort #hurt/comfort #kinda?#protective kate

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softgreengrass · 2 months

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could you do a sad nat one shot but with a happy ending? pleaseee 🙏🏻

ask and u shall receive

also pls send more requests guys!! feel free to send more specific requests (my imagination only runs so far..), songs to base something off, or something non-natasha or even non-marvel ! there’s a good chance i’ll be open to writing for whatever u want

also idk if anyone cares but ignore formatting inconsistencies im just messing around to see what i like the most

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softgreengrass · 2 months

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I’ll Survive

Natasha Romanoff x reader

Summary: happy then sad then happy, requested, supersoldier!r but it’s not relevant to plot

Word Count: 2.7K

Warnings: death, grief

A/N: thanks for the request!

You and Natasha are in the gym when FRIDAY calls a meeting.

“Come on, is that all you got?” she grins, leaning into the punching bag with all her weight.

You fire a few more jabs, and her feet slip back a little. Sweat rolls down your forehead.

“Attention, all,” FRIDAY’s voice rings out. “Mission briefing in the conference room. 10 minutes.”

You don’t stop your barrage of punches, your eyes locked onto the Avengers logo in the center of the bag.

“You sure you’re ready to get back into it?” Natasha asks.

You’ve been coming off of an injury for a few months now. Bad intel, a trap, a bullet straight through your femur — being on bedrest was your seventh circle of hell.

Instead of answering, you wind your fist back and hit the bag hard enough to send it flying across the room, taking Natasha with it. She slams against the wall and laughs.

You wipe your face with a towel before walking over and kicking the bag away from her. “Sorry.”

“Super soldiers,” she mutters, shaking her head.

You offer her a hand. She takes it, rising to her feet, and leans into your chest. Butterflies shoot through your stomach.

“You sure you’re ready?” she asks softly.

“Yeah.”

Her eyes flick down to your lips, and you pull her into a slow kiss. Her hands find the back of your neck, lace through your hair. It only lasts a few seconds before she swipes her foot behind your leg and shoves your shoulders hard.

You land flat on your back with a groan.

“10 minutes, killer,” she smirks. “And don’t ever do that again.”

You’re the last one in the conference room, and there are no seats left around the table. Cap shoots you a disapproving glance as you close the door behind you.

“Hope no one made any weekend plans,” Cap clears his throat. “Because we’re heading to Russia.”

Tony groans obnoxiously. “Come on, really?”

The holographic screen suspended above the table turns on, showing the floor plans of the Kremlin. Everyone falls silent.

“This isn’t a villain of the week, guys,” Steve sighs. “Hell, it’s not even HYDRA.”

You whistle, and Rhodey glares at you.

“As far as we can tell, the Russian government is doing this entirely of their own accord. The only one pulling the strings is Putin.”

“What are they doing?” Clint asks, leaning back in his chair.

“They want to put nukes in space.” Steve presses his clicker and the screen shows the earth and a dozen orbits around it. “That’s a one-way ticket to world war three.”

“And you want us to, what, eat the nukes?” Tony asks.

Cap clenches his jaw. “The Department of Defense wants us to make sure they don’t launch. My plan makes sure Putin won’t ever get the chance to.”

“You want to assassinate him?” Natasha asks quickly.

Steve faces her. “I want you to.”

Your eyes meet Natasha’s through the projection, and you swallow.

“He’s gotta be the most well-protected guy on the planet,” Bruce says.

“That’s a suicide mission!” Clint cries.

“Which is why we’re all going,” Steve says, in that authoritative old man tone that shuts everyone up. “Banner’s right. It’s going to take all of us just to get a chance.”

“Pretty sure assassinating the Russian president is an act of war,” you say. “Number two in command is just gonna send those nukes up and point them straight at the Pentagon.”

Everyone is quiet for a moment. Then they turn towards Steve.

“Which is why I have a plan,” he says firmly.

You don’t like it one bit. Not one bit. Natasha, undercover for two weeks without comms. Clint posing as a diplomat. The rest of you hunkered underground, waiting for the right moment to invade the Kremlin. It’s almost recklessly risky. And yet, Steve has his full faith in it, which means the rest of you do too.

That night, Natasha holds onto you tightly. She’s terrified to go back there, regardless of what she says. It’s worse than going after one cell, or even the Red Room itself. It’s the man behind the curtain who’s been controlling it all.

“It’s going to go fine,” she murmurs, wrapping her arms around your waist and pulling you further into her.

“It is,” you say. You take her hands and press them into your sternum. You’d only succeeded in being the big spoon a couple times — never when she was stressed. So you stare at the wall. “I mean it.”

“Me too,” her breath fans against the back of your neck. “We’ve done harder things before, haven’t we?”

“Oh, absolutely,” you exhale. “I mean, aliens? AI? Bruce when he’s hungry?”

She laughs, and that eases some of the pressure on your heart. “Worst case, I’ll survive.”

“You always do.”

“I always do,” she smiles. “And best case, I take care of him, you get rid of the cabinet, and Steve slides in his new leader. And we get out of there and go to… I don’t know. The Dominican Republic.”

“The Dominican Republic?”

“Why not?” she kisses your shoulder. “A vacation. Moscow’ll be a pretty intense way to get back into the action. You’ll deserve a break.”

“I’ve been on a break for three months,” you snort.

“Oh come on, you don’t want a piña colada? Palm trees? White sand beaches?”

“Well when you put it like that,” you say, turning around to face her. “I guess we could go to the Dominican Republic.”

She smiles, tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. “Promise?”

You could stare into the green of her eyes forever. “Promise.”

Not three weeks later, you sit staring at a computer screen in a bunker a hundred feet below Red Square. Tony sits to your left. There’s no point in watching the feed, since all of the cameras are outside of the Kremlin and Natasha walked in an hour ago, but you can’t help it. You feel powerless.

For ten days, Natasha has been Alina Konstantinovna Petrova, a middle-aged politician who just got back from a stint in Belarus. When she emerged wearing the nanotech mask for the first time, you genuinely didn’t recognize her. Her voice, her gait, her mannerisms — all changed. Sometimes you forget she’s the world’s greatest spy.

But with no comms and no tracker, all you have is your faith in that fact. Just your trust in her.

If she’s on schedule, she should be having tea with the Prime Minister, but really she could be anywhere, doing anything. There’s absolutely no way for you to know.

“You know,” Wanda sighs, tipping back in her office chair and tossing a tennis ball into the air. “I don’t think all of us had to be here.”

“Agreed,” Tony grumbles. “I was supposed to be at a gala right now.”

“Do you think-”

“Quiet!” Steve orders, narrowing his eyes at the screen. “Do you see that? Is that smoke?”

You lean closer. It is smoke, pouring out of a second-floor window, and it makes your stomach drop.

Steve taps into the emergency comms in Clint’s ear. “Is there a fire? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Clint’s voice replies, hushed. “I don’t know, they put us into a ballroom. I don’t know where she is.”

“Shit,” Steve mutters.

“What do we do?” you ask, rising to your feet.

Steve grimaces. “If… if we make contact now, she won’t have a shot. It’ll all be for nothing.”

“The Kremlin isn’t usually on fire,” you snap.

“I’m sure she can handle it,” he glares back. His voice is dangerously quiet when he speaks again. “She knows what’s on the line here.”

But five minutes later, the smoke hasn’t stopped. It’s spread. Clint and the other diplomats are being evacuated.

You keep your eyes glued to the feed, scanning for Alina Petrova’s face among the crowd. She never emerges, but neither do the Prime Minister or cabinet. Maybe there’s a hidden exit.

Just when it seems like the fire is coming under control and the chaos is cooling, the cameras cut out.

You rush for the exit immediately, Tony and Steve right on your heels. Your entire body goes numb as you climb the ladder.

It’s probably fine, you think, hands squeezing the rungs too tight. The fire burned a power line, or the government stopped the footage to protect their image. She’s fine. She’s fine.

You heave the manhole cover out of place with your shoulder, hoisting yourself onto the street and ignoring the pedestrians who stare at you.

It’s absolute pandemonium. There’s a crater where half of the Kremlin used to be, and the other half is engulfed in flames. You sprint towards it.

Steve immediately shouts after you, but all you can hear is the rush of blood in your ears.

Maybe there’s a hidden exit. She had to have noticed the fire, she would’ve escaped, she would’ve made it out. She would’ve.

The police that are always stationed around the Kremlin make a border around it, though no one except you is trying to go towards the burning building.

“Ostanavis’!” they yell, but you hurdle their makeshift barricade.

If she was on schedule, she would’ve been on the east side, top floor. The heat doesn’t even register in your mind.

You root through rubble as fast as you can, barely noticing when Wanda and Steve join you in your search. Smoke stings your eyes and fills your lungs until you can barely choke out a breath.

There are heaps of ash that might’ve once been people, might’ve once been Natasha.

You climb trembling supports to get to the second floor: there are bones there, even fragments of medals and jewelry. The farther you get from the crater the less charred the bodies become. But you can only get so close to the live blaze, and none of the bodies are hers. The skin on your hands begins to blister from red-hot ash and metal.

At some point Steve pulls you away, ignores the way you claw at him and scream that you won’t leave her. The three of you (Tony, Bruce, and Rhodey had been wise enough to run away from flaming wreckage) end up in a Russian prison, charged as enemies of the state responsible for the fire and ensuing blast.

By the time the Department of Defense negotiates you out, you’ve convinced yourself that Natasha must’ve escaped. There’s no other option. She couldn’t die. If you didn’t find her, she couldn’t have been there. She must’ve gotten out.

But when you walk into SHIELD’s Moscow base, she isn’t there. It’s only Fury and Clint.

“Where is she?” you ask, rushing towards them. Everyone else seems to slip out of the room.

Fury’s eyes stay trained on you, swimming with something you don’t want to decipher. Your heart pounds against your chest

“Where is she?”

“She’s dead,” Clint says, his voice raw.

“No,” you respond immediately. “No, she isn’t.”

He closes his eyes.

No. You see a flash of her smile, of the jacket she loved. You feel the ghost of her touch on your face.

“I thought she faked it,” Fury says after a moment. “But… we made a deal a few years ago. If one of us faked it again we’d leave something behind so the other would know. A ring.”

You’ve never heard his voice so weak before. Somehow it’s scarier than anything else.

“But there was no ring,” he clears his throat. “Just this.”

He holds out his hand, opens it. The necklace you gave Natasha last year is bunched up on his palm, dark with soot. Your knees almost give out. She never takes it off, not to sleep or train or go undercover. She would never leave it behind.

Reality dawns on you like an awful black wave. Natasha is dead.

“I’m sorry,” Fury says, resting a hand on your shoulder. You can’t feel it. Every breath, every blink is manual now, every movement an act of will.

Worst case, I’ll survive.

You just want to hug her again. Just see her face one more time, knowing it’ll be the last. Suddenly a deep red rage fills your vision, and your muscles twitch to strangle whoever set the fire, whoever planted the bomb.

“There was no body?” you ask hoarsely. You can’t tear your eyes from the necklace.

Fury shakes his head. “Ash.”

A lump forms in your throat that won’t leave for weeks. You feel like you’re looking at everything through frosted glass, frozen in the moments that you just held. It’s like you’ve been caught in a spiderweb.

You don’t cry until you set foot inside her room at the compound. Everything is just how she left it, like she just stepped out. Like she’ll come back any second now.

The covers on her bed are rumpled.

You can’t wrap your kind around the fact that she could be gone, vanished into thin air, reduced to dust. That she’ll never touch anything again. You sit down on the floor and hug your knees.

For a few days you don’t eat; you don’t speak for longer. The gaping hole in your chest churns and twists in an agonizing way. Every night you dream of refusing Steve’s plan, or going up as soon as you saw the smoke, or doing anything except sitting idly while she burned alive.

You’re at Steve’s throat often enough that Tony kicks you both out of the compound. It’s not like either of you are of use, anyways. The others manage to channel their sorrow into work. You don’t.

Clint takes time off, too. Laura manages to convince you it’ll be good.

But with nothing to distract you, you feel the pain of every passing moment. Every minute that you get older and she doesn’t. You don’t want to have to think of a life without her in it.

Weeks or months into your dull gray blur of a life, someone knocks on your door. You hope it’s not Steve. You don’t know if it’s the season, but you could spring for a box of Thin Mints.

It’s not a girl scout. It’s Natasha.

Your eyes go wide; your face pales. Nanotech mask? Clone? “A-Are you real?”

She wheezes out your name, keeps her hands clutched to her side.

“Is it really you?” you ask, your eyes welling with tears and your hands trembling as you reach out to touch her.

“I missed you,” she breathes, her eyes roaming your face.

She has a black eye and a split lip. It’s her. You drink in the green of her eyes and the red of her hair and the softness of her face and you can’t keep the sobs from escaping. She crashes into your arms, ignoring the throbbing pain in her ribs. She smells like sweat and home.

Natasha is crying too, shaking, her face hidden in your chest. You close your eyes and tilt your head down to rest your lips on her head.

“You’re hurt,” you say when you remember how to speak.

She pulls away and kisses you deeply. It feels like God blessing you, even if it tastes like blood. She’s real. You don’t let go of her until she gently pushes you away.

“We should go inside,” she whispers.

You’re in a daze for half an hour, while you wrap her ribs and bandage the gash on her arm. She doesn’t leave your gaze for one second. When you’re finally satisfied that she won’t drop dead, you collapse onto the couch next to her.

She climbs on top of you, pulls you close.

“They were onto me,” she murmurs into your hair. “I had to escape, I couldn’t let them think I was alive.”

Anger roars in your chest. “I’m not losing you again.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“I’m going to kill them,” you growl, wrapping your arms around her securely.

“I’ll help,” she says, and you can hear the smile in her voice. “They’re probably coming here.”

“You were followed?”

“I wanted to see you,” she sighs. “I didn’t take all the precautions.”

You laugh and bury your face into the crook of her neck. “You think we can go to the Dominican Republic after?”

“I’ll break up with you if we don’t.”

#natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff #angst #black widow #black widow x reader #marvel #mcu #natasha x reader #fluff

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softgreengrass · 3 months

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would you be willing to do a sad nat one shot? sorry I just need to feel something 💀

Punishment

Natasha Romanoff x reader

Summary: you are dead (sorry) and nat has to live with that 😞 (most of this takes place inside of a dream hopefully it’s not too confusing)

Word Count: 1.2k

Warnings: death,, referenced torture

Author’s Note: sorry this is on the shorter side! tysm for requesting ☺️ i also use fanfiction to feel so hopefully it’s sad enough for you

It’s a nightmare, like always. You’re there, like always.

“Nat!” your voice rings out, light and sweet in the hazy morning light, and Natasha rolls over, burying her face in your side of the bed. It’s still warm. “Nat!”

“Five more minutes,” she grumbles back.

Your footsteps come to a stop next to the bed. “I made cinnamon rolls, you know.”

Natasha smiles to herself. It all feels so, so real. The sheets smell like your lotion, and the sun is pale through the curtains, just like it always is in winter. How it was the last winter you were with her.

You poke her shoulder. “Aren’t you supposed to be a superspy? Get up.”

“I’m off the clock,” she says, sitting up anyways. The glimmer in your eyes looks so real. Her lungs tighten at that, and she wraps her arms around your waist, hugging you tight.

You laugh and run your fingers through her hair. “Missed me that much, huh?”

She closes her eyes and sinks deeper into you, praying as hard as she ever has. Begging for just one more life with you. She remembers how to breathe again as you scratch her scalp gently and lean into her embrace, and she inhales you again.

After far too little time passes, you rest your hands on her shoulders. “Come on, baby. They’re gonna get cold.”

She lets you lead her out of the bedroom, hands intertwined. The apartment looks just how you left it. Because it’s so easy to, she slips back into routine. Like you’re there every day when she wakes up. She tugs open the blinds over the sink and waters the plants on the windowsill; you pour two cups of coffee. You sit down at the table together like it’s any old Saturday.

“What’s with you today?” you ask with a slight smile, immediately pulling a cinnamon roll from the pan.

“Me?” Natasha replies.

“No, the milkman.”

She grins, shaking her head. “Sorry. I don’t know, I’m just out of it.”

“Well, you’re not too out of it to talk crossword, right?”

God, she had forgotten about that. You’ve been on a crossword kick lately, though you heavily rely on Natasha’s knowledge bank of language and policy and science. Really, you mostly cover the pop culture clues. “Never.”

You spread the newspaper out between the both of you and drop a pencil in front of her. “I’ll start with down, you’ll start with across?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

You scribble down some answers, eyebrows furrowed.

Natasha stands up for a moment, just to get the cream, but when she turns back around she’s not in the kitchen anymore. She’s strapped to that chair, staring at you in that cell. Your eyes are bloodshot. The dreams always wind up here, no matter how innocently they start, and Natasha’s stomach churns.

“Nat,” you croak, and her heart shatters for the millionth time.

She thrashes against her restraints, but they must be made of fucking vibranium because they cut into her wrists without budging. She doesn’t have any tricks up her sleeve — she’s in her pajamas, for God’s sake. No widow’s bite or portable EMP. Not even a way to signal Clint.

“Nat, please,” you beg, your voice as raw as the bruises on your face.

“I’m going to-” she says, struggling against the restraints again. “I’m going to get you out.”

But of course, she can’t. She might as well be a bronze statue in that chair. They’re going to make her watch you die again.

She racks her brain for as long as she can, fights the excruciating dejá vu. Maybe something will be different this time. Maybe she can get someone’s attention, some lackey she can convince to let her out. She’ll murder them all, then. Murder them and take you home.

A vent catches her eye, in the corner of your cell. You don’t have much at your disposal, but there’s a food tray on the floor that might work. She has to say your name three times before you recognize it.

“What?” you ask suddenly, eyes wide.

“I need you to try something, okay?”

You’re weak. You’ve been there for days at the minimum, been under intense interrogation lights and an array of torture methods. Natasha was the one trained for that, not you. “I don’t know…”

“Please.”

You swallow iron-tinged spit.

“Can you break that in half?” Natasha whispers, flicking her eyes to the tray. She doesn’t remember if you’re under surveillance or not. She figures you must be.

Your hands shake as you reach for it. It must be tin, that’s how flimsy and light it is, but you know you don’t have the strength to break it by hand. That ship sailed about three gut punches ago. You’d vomited out everything but your will to live, though that was fading fast too.

“Use your legs,” Natasha hisses like she can read your mind. “Stick it under something, get leverage.”

The sight of you stumbling to the bunk sends fire up her throat. She’s going to burn them all alive.

You wedge the tray under one of the bunk’s legs and pull up on the other side before stepping down on it as hard as you can. All it does is fold in half.

“Fuck,” Natasha mutters. “Can you rip it? With your teeth or something?”

You’re pretty sure your teeth would fall out if you so much as bite an apple, so you drive the tray down on the sharpest edge you can find: the corner of the tiny sink. Later, Natasha will think about how strange it was that the cell had so many amenities. She’ll come up with triple the ways to escape. All too late.

The corner pierces it, and you claw at the hole until the tray is split in half. It slices your fingers in more places than you can count.

“Use it on the vent,” Natasha says. Despite herself, she feels an ember of hope in her chest. You’d never gotten this close before. She can barely watch as you balance on top of the sink, trying to shove the sharp little metal sheet into the seam between the vent and wall. It’s slippery with blood.

A door in the cell she hadn’t even noticed swings open. A man in black storms in. Before she can get a word out, he grabs you, throws you to the ground.

Natasha recoils, forcing her eyes back open as quickly as possible. He kicks you, over and over, and you cry for mercy.

Her restraints seem to tighten. They cut off her circulation, so that not even dislocating her wrists would let her save you. She’s absolutely helpless. You sob and curl into yourself, and she’s sure she’s never felt such anguish before. But she has, and she certainly will again.

Her eyes shoot open to dark ceiling. She’s in the living room, using the couch like a cot. She still hasn’t brought herself to touch the bed you made. She probably never will.

She drags herself to her feet and shuffles to the kitchen counter, turning on the electric kettle. Only chamomile helps her breathe now.

All those people she’d managed to kill. All those missions she’d executed to perfection, for the Red Room and HYDRA and Fury. All of the people caught in the crossfire of her tunnel vision. And yet, in the single most important moment of her life, she had failed. Failed.

She figures it could’ve been karma. A cosmic punishment for the arrogance of trying to wipe her slate clean. With that much sin to atone for, she shouldn’t be able to live happily. That’s what the universe seems to think, at least.

#angst #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff #marvel #mcu #natasha x reader #black widow #black widow x reader

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softgreengrass · 3 months

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The Gold

Natasha Romanoff x Reader

Summary: angst, au where clint dies on vormir instead of natasha, set a few months after endgame, relationship troubles😬

Word Count: 1.3k

Warnings: survivor’s guilt, breakup

Author’s Note: based on “the gold” by manchester orchestra and phoebe bridgers

You wake to birds chirping. Natasha has opened the window. She’s nowhere to be seen, probably in the kitchen or out for a run. All at once, a crushing melancholy falls onto your chest, the one that’s been appearing with increasing frequency ever since she returned.

She hadn’t wanted to come back; anyone could see that. She wished she was dead instead of Clint, instead of Tony. And she meant it. She wanted to be dead.

Because of that, it had never felt like a victory to you. You knew the others agreed —Wanda, Peter, Bucky— but that didn’t make it much easier.

Even the things Thanos hadn’t taken, he had changed.

You get up slowly, all too aware of the lump in your throat and the fragility of your heart. If Natasha so much as looks at you wrong this morning, you’ll lose it. Again.

You know she’s tired of it, of your mood swings and sensitivity, but it all stems from her and she knows that too. Those first few weeks after her return had set a certain tone.

Natasha is standing at the kitchen counter, staring at the coffee pot. You know why instantly. You always do.

“I forgot how he used to drink straight from this,” she murmurs.

“I know.”

You’ve grown used to Natasha’s blank stare: it doesn’t twist your heart the way it used to. Some days you think she found your biggest store of sympathy and dried it all up. You shuffle past her, open the freezer, and pull out hash browns.

“I was going to visit Laura today,” she says numbly.

“You visited her yesterday, baby,” you say, glancing up at her as you dump the hash browns onto a pan. “I think she’s okay for today.”

Natasha swallows. You can see the pain in her eyes, the sinkhole of regret. “I don’t have any other plans.”

“You could stay home with me.”

Your tone is neutral, but you know she picks up on the hope in it. And you can feel the distance that grows between you the longer she takes to answer.

“Come on, Nat,” you smile, like your eyes aren’t already stinging with tears.

“I want to be useful,” she pleads. “I… you’re too good to me here. I can’t be useful.”

It takes you a second to process what on earth she could possibly mean. Natasha stands quietly.

In another life, you could’ve said the words on your tongue. Could’ve told her that you need her like water, that the most useful thing she could possibly do is just be with you. But you know you can survive without her. At this point she must know that too.

And yet, there’s something yearning in her eyes, like she has faith in you.

The hash browns crackle and give you an excuse to look at them instead of her.

Somewhere deep inside of you, you know Natasha has always been fine without you. She doesn’t love you in the way you love her, in the way that would summon sympathy and energy out of thin air. She used to, maybe. It’s all bitter on your tongue.

She clears her throat. “I got an email. Apparently they want to give us medals.“

“You brought back half the universe. The least you deserve is a medal.”

You know what she wants to say to that. The silence is frustrated and thick, the lump in your throat quickly returning. You hate that nothing is easy anymore.

“I’m going to Laura’s,” she says eventually.

You can’t find it in you to respond; you can barely make yourself nod. The oil on the pan bubbles and spatters violently, and you realize that’s how your blood feels, singing your arteries and your veins and your heart.

When the door closes behind her, you close your eyes.

Your dad’s face comes to mind. “Don’t open your eyes for a while,” he used to say, his voice gravelly but gentle. “Just breathe that moment down.”

It had helped, especially in your teenage years when you were quick to anger and quicker to hurt. Regret used to swallow you whole. You had told Natasha that once, years ago, when you visited his grave together for the first time. She had been polite.

You don’t want to resent her. God, how you don’t. But the past couple of months have worn you down to the bone, and it would be one thing if she was fighting too, but she gave up on that cliff. You don’t know how much longer you can do all the caring for.

And it’s not like your relationship was perfect before, either. You had met her at a high point. It had always been a steady decline.

A hard wave of guilt nearly knocks the breath out of you, and you have to grip the counter to keep your balance. You love her. You’ll fight for as long as you can.

You eat the burnt hash browns right out of the pan, even though you don’t feel hungry.

By ten, Natasha still hasn’t come home, and you’re back in bed, blinking back more tears, since that feels like all you do nowadays. Now accompanying the gloom and guilt in your ribcage is an unrelenting discomfort. It’s that same old helpless feeling, the one that knows things are going to change and there’s nothing you can do about it.

The vertigo of it all rocks you to sleep.

You make it another week before one of Natasha’s nightmares wakes you up and you’re so full of discontent you can’t breathe. Still, you swallow it down and find her hand in the dark.

“Nat, you’re right here,” you whisper.

A squeeze of her hand and she opens her eyes, frantically looking around.

“It was just a dream.”

Wild eyes find your own; a sheen of sweat coats her face. Her breath heaves. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” The words burn in your throat. How many times will you have to tell her that?

Her head falls back against the pillow with a sigh.

Your eyes ache for sleep, but then there it is again, that realization that soon you might never be in bed with her again. You’re not sure how to appreciate it fully.

“Are you hungry?” she asks coarsely, staring up at the ceiling.

You’re not. “I could eat.”

She smears peanut butter onto toast into the kitchen, gives the first one to you. It must be the millionth time the two of you have been in the kitchen together, dark circles under your eyes and hair frizzy.

“You know I wish none of that ever happened,” Natasha says softly.

“Of course,” you furrow your brow. “I wish it didn’t either.”

“No, I mean,” she huffs. “I wish we didn’t change. I wish I didn’t change.”

It’s like something has pierced your heart. You can’t find anything to say to comfort her, because you wish that just as much as she does.

“I don’t want you to go,” she admits, her bottom lip quivering. “But I don’t want to hold you back just because I’m stuck.”

“Nat…”

She swallows thickly. “It’s your choice.”

You hate that you already know your answer, that you’ve known it for so long. You hate it.

Your arms wrap around her tightly as you take in her softness and her scent again. Her cheek is damp against your shoulder, your own eyes welling with relentless tears.

It feels like stiff fingers prodding at your throat and your chest: it makes you want to curl into a ball. You’re horrified at the idea of a life without her, especially one where you know she’s still walking around. But it’s either drown or freefall, and you need to give yourself a chance.

“I’m sorry, baby,” you mutter into her neck.

“It’s okay,” she whispers. “I’m sorry too.”

She holds you as wave after wave of bittersweet relief and regret crash over you, and you fall asleep in each other’s arms once more. The next morning she helps you gather your things.

#natasha romanoff x reader #angst #natasha x reader #black widow x reader #black widow #natasha romanoff #mcu #marvel #scarlett johansson x reader

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softgreengrass · 9 months

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you're a flop and need to get back to work! write those fanfics!

😢

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softgreengrass · 1 year

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post

IM SORRY

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softgreengrass · 1 year

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AHDBFHHD THANK YOUUUUU i appreciate it sososo much

part 3 coming soon-ish ?? srry i have a lot on my plate🤧

Sun to Me

Wednesday Addams x reader

Summary: Wednesday isn't a great girlfriend.

Words: 2.0k

Warnings: none, implied f!reader, reader referred to as girlfriend

Author's Note: angst sorry not sorry. inspired by sun to me by zach bryan,, first fic i've published so any feedback is appreciated!

Pt. 2

When you first met Wednesday, you were absolutely terrified of her. But she had taken an interest in you, from the very beginning, and soon you found yourself laughing at her morbid jokes and thinking about her every night before you fell asleep.

Wednesday would never admit it, but when she couldn’t sleep, her mind would wander to far-off places. She saw your smile, your hand in hers, and she saw a love like her parents had.

Now, half a year later, you feel like you know more about Wednesday than you ever wanted to. You know every last quirk, every microexpression she lets grace her face. You know exactly the way she lights up when she sees you, even if to others it looks like a regular glare. Wednesday lets you sleep in her bed; she lets you braid her hair; she lets you lounge about during her writing time. It’s normal stuff, but it isn’t, because it’s Wednesday. Hell, seeing her smile is rarer than Halley’s Comet, let alone getting into her personal space.

Wednesday doesn’t know why she’s so enthralled by you, but she is. You’re patient with her, even when you probably shouldn’t be, and you jump at the chance to take care of her. It feels good.

“Thank god that’s over,” you say, flopping face-down onto her bed. Thing jumps out from under the covers, scurrying away.

The history exam you’ve just completed was the last one on your schedule — you’re free. For a week of break, anyways. Wednesday had helped you study for it (you flipped through a textbook while she rattled off every piece of evidence she had collected for her newest investigation).

“How did it go?” she asks, standing up from her chair and popping a piece of black licorice into her mouth.

“Bad,” you say, voice muffled. “But it’s over.”

She hums.

“How were yours?” You roll over, watching as she walks over to the bulletin board pinned full of documents and sticky notes.

“Unchallenging.”

That was Wednesday. Always too smart for her own good. “What do you want to do tonight? No homework,” you grin.

“I need to go to Jericho High School,” she says plainly, staring at the board.

Your face falls, even though at this point it shouldn’t. It’s a common occurrence: Wednesday too caught up in her hyperfixation to make time for you or your feelings. You shouldn’t be surprised anymore. You swallow, making sure your voice stays level. “What are you gonna find there?”

She looks over her shoulder, eyes flashing annoyance. “I don’t know. That’s the point of going.”

Right.

The thing is, you can’t blame her. She told you, again and again, that you shouldn’t devote your time or energy to her. For the first few weeks of your relationship, she was a broken record: “this is a bad idea,” “you shouldn’t care about me,” “you’d be better off alone.” You, enamored with her jet-black hair and the dusting of freckles across her nose, had taken it as a challenge.

More and more, you found yourself regretting that.

Then Wednesday says your name, tentatively, and your gaze snaps to her.

“I’m sorry,” she chokes out, the words unnatural in her stony voice. “Was that insensitive?”

You shake your head, putting on a smile. You’re still Wednesday Addams’ girlfriend. You get her heart, at the end of the day. “It’s okay.”

“I’m hoping to find something that points me to the culprit.”

You nod, wishing for her to just drop it. You’d rather move on, figure out plans with one of your friends instead.

“Would you like to do something tomorrow?” Her eyes are hesitant, but genuine, and just like that your heart melts again.

“There’s an art gallery opening a couple towns over,” you blurt, too excited to let this opportunity pass. “We could… drive over and see it?”

She’s turned back to the board. “How long would that take?”

You ignore the slight sting in your heart. “I don’t know, it depends on how long we spend there. We could make a whole day out of it.”

“I told Eugene I’d help him prepare the hives for the next harvest,” she says blankly. “That won’t work.”

It kills you that she can’t concentrate on you for more than a few seconds at a time. Especially since you know that if you were to ignore her in the same way, even just for an hour, she would shut down and close herself off. “Can you at least look at me?”

There’s emotion bubbling up inside of you, emotion that you don’t want to express right now, but she’s facing you.

“I’m working on being more delicate, you know that,” Wednesday says, her voice tight. You know her defenses are up.

“It’s not that,” you scoff, blinking back stubborn tears. “You never try. Do you know how many things I’ve compromised on for you?”

Her eyes flick around the room, eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

“The movies, for one,” you say, shuddering at the thought of the true-crime documentaries you’re plagued to watch nearly every night. “The no-touching. The no-compliments. The not-telling-anyone-about-us?”

“You agreed to all of that.”

“Exactly!” you cry. “That’s my point! What have you agreed to?”

Wednesday hates the feeling creeping up her chest. The burning feeling in her throat, the cold dread in the pit of her stomach. That she’s hurting someone she cares about without even realizing it. Again. She wants desperately to make it right, to understand exactly what you want her to do, but the moment you raise your voice, her reflexes kick in.

“I agreed to being your girlfriend!” she says, louder than she meant to.

Your heart sinks into your stomach. She isn’t even trying to understand. “That was that big of a sacrifice for you, huh?”

Wednesday licks her lips nervously, hating the look in your eyes, hating how hurt you are and how angry she is. Now, the thought of a relationship like her parents’ is distant and sickening. She can’t imagine having the patience to communicate with someone for so many years — all she can think about is how much easier it would be to do it all alone.

But then her eyes find yours, desperate and heartbroken and filled with tears, and she wants to tear her hair out.

“I’m not enough for you, I know that,” you say quietly, and Wednesday’s heart twists in a way it never has before. “But I… I just thought you would try.”

She calls your name, reaches out a hand, but you’ve already left her dorm. You rush down the hallway, hoping she leaves you alone and chases after you all at once. The tears are hot down your cheeks, and the lump in your throat just won’t leave. You had trusted Wednesday with your heart. You had given it to her, even though your mom knew and your best friend knew and you knew that you shouldn’t have.

Find someone who grows flowers in the darkest parts of you, your mom would say, whenever you asked her questions about love far too big for a six-year-old. She would tell you that your heart was a treasure, and that someday you’d find someone who bettered you in every single way.

You had known, you had always known that that wasn’t Wednesday. But she kissed you, she opened up to you, she looked at you in ways that said you were the most special person in the world. And for a while, you were. You were the only one who got to know Wednesday Addams. But you had invested too much, and she never changed: the same inexplicable mystery that had drawn you to her was now pulling you apart from the inside out. She wasn’t built for the kind of relationship that you needed, even if she could make your day just by meeting your eyes.

You find your way to your room through tear-blurred vision, thanking the stars above that your roommate had left early to spend break with her parents.

You collapse onto your bed, sobbing. You feel silly, stupid, used, thinking about every sacrifice you’ve made for her and how little she’s done in return. How unfair it is: she’s trying, you know she’s trying, but trying to Wednesday is the bare minimum to you, and you can’t change what you need.

You cry until your head pounds and your throat is raw, and even then you can’t stop picturing her dark eyes and scarce, golden smiles. You hear your mother’s voice in your head. Your heart clenches.

Eventually, you fall into a restless sleep, thoughts racing and palms sweating. You want more than anything to go to Wednesday’s room to rant about all of your emotions, knowing she’s only half-listening, and to persuade her to cuddle with you in bed, to hold her tight.

Nausea comes and goes in waves.

You don’t want to answer the knock at your door, except it comes from low down on the ground, and you’d never turn Thing away.

He’s holding an envelope between his second and third fingers.

An envelope, with your name scrawled across it in messy cursive. Thing drops it and takes a small bow, hurrying down the hall. You pick it up and shut the door with a sniff, wiping your nose. You’ve never been so grateful for deserted hallways.

You rip it open on your bed, entirely unprepared for the rush of emotion that hits you when you smell Wednesday’s typewriter ink.

I can’t say things to your face, but you need to know them, so I’ve decided to write them. If I am a black dahlia, you are a sunflower. You are the sweetest of the sunflowers; you are the sun to me. I loathe myself for every moment I have spent upsetting you. I know that I am selfish, and that you are selfless, and that I hurt you even when I’m not trying to. Sorry isn’t enough of a word.

For my entire life, I believed love was nothing but a weakness to be exploited. I thought people like you, who love and give endlessly into this world, were oblivious to the reality of the world. But then I met you, and you cared for someone who least deserved it. The time of day was more than I deserved, and you gave me so much more than that. You have parted the clouds, you have brought sunlight into my life, you have brought me more joy and peace than I care to admit. And to repay you, I hurt you.

You are the sweetest of the sunflowers, and I will never again let myself forget it. I vow to do my utmost to provide you with everything you desire, if you allow me. I’m sorry, my love.

Wednesday nearly jumps when Thing returns, asking him how you looked and if you took the letter. She waits, bouncing her leg, tapping her fingers, thinking about why time travel hasn’t been invented yet. Her mouth is dry, her heart hammering against her ribs. She’s never been so anxious before.

She barely remembers to smooth out her hair before answering the knock that eventually comes at her door.

“Hi,” you mumble, holding the letter in your hands.

“Hi,” she breathes.

“Do I get another chance?” she asks in a rush. You don’t think you’ve ever heard her this forward.

“I’m out of patience,” you say, and she nods quickly, blinking red-rimmed eyes.

A younger version of you would be reeling at the sight of such blatant emotion on her face.

“Can I hug you?”

Her eyebrows lift, eyes widening ever so slightly.

You can’t stand being mad at her.

Her arms wrap around you tightly, holding you close, her face buried into the crook of your neck. You take a deep breath.

#thank u #i love u #thanks #thank you #thanks again

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softgreengrass · 1 year

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🤫

sun to me pt 3 teaserrrrrrrr bc i feel bad for disappearing for 3 months lol

—

When you graduated and moved to the west coast, it was rare for Wednesday to cross your mind. By the time you had struggled through your first year of art school, you could barely remember her touch.

Wednesday was in a bustling city, crowded enough to make her lonelier than ever. Her studies were fascinating, and the libraries gothic, but it was rare for a day to pass without her longing for you. She wouldn’t reach out, she wouldn’t do that to you, so instead she shut herself off.

The deeper she delved into her books, the easier it was to forget her family: in just a few short months, her affection for them had crumbled and given way to a desperate resentment. Really, it was their lack of patience and understanding that tipped her over the edge. They wouldn’t listen to her — not near the way you would.

But she was in a dark apartment, thousands of miles away from you, and you were hunched over a canvas, paint staining your fingers.

#yeah sorry #lol #y'all aren't ready for this #sorry this is so short but oh well

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softgreengrass · 1 year

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u dropped the best wednesday addams fics and then dipped and honestly i respect u for that

dipped in mother lake

no fr tho i didn’t mean to disappear like that but the semester started and i got SWAMPED,,, like

i promise i’m writing though!! (coming soon🤭) and also we’re at over 200 followers now,, literally What thank you so so much!!!

but pls guys send any little requests you have! i’d love to write some blurbs or whatever, with sun to me this whole world is developing and i want to do it justice which is why it’s taking me so long, but i’d be happy to write some other short stuff if u guys want!!

#ask #didntmeanforthistobeanessaypls

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softgreengrass · 1 year

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the natasha fic you just posted might be the best fanfiction i have ever read in my life. my favorite trope, executed good, just amazing

i’m honored omg😭😭thank you so much

#ask

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softgreengrass · 1 year

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Gone Bad

Natasha Romanoff x reader

Summary: You're a SHIELD agent on a mission gone bad.

Words: 1.5k

Warnings: blood, getting shot, f!reader

Author's Note: hurt/comfort ig? FLUFF. soft natasha :)

You weren’t sure where exactly you went wrong. You had gotten the mission assignment from Fury, done the required research, made sure you were properly trained, and left quickly. Everything had been going exactly to plan — you snuck in through the roof, incapacitated a few guards, and maneuvered to the underground vault that held the top-secret computer chips you were after. The security system was easy to freeze. The vault was easy to crack.

Only, at some point during your exit, you made a mistake. It could’ve been anything: tripping a sensor, or leaving a guard slightly conscious, or, hell, you could’ve taken a wrong turn and walked right in front of a camera. It didn’t matter. The point was, you had fucked up, and now you were getting shot at.

In the midst of the panic and rush, all that was on your mind was how disappointed Fury would be. This was only your fourth solo mission, and sure, the first three had gone off without a hitch, but agents weren’t supposed to make mistakes. If you managed to worm your way out of this with the chips—and that was a big if—would he even trust you to go on another solo? It didn’t seem likely. This operation was supposed to be a secret, it was supposed to happen completely under the enemies’ noses, but that was all hopeless now. They knew that SHIELD was after them. Shit, they knew that SHIELD was after them.

In all of your spiraling, you didn’t notice the hostile sneaking up behind you and cocking a gun. What you did notice, however, was the sharp, burning pain in the center of your stomach. The agony and blood quickly blooming across your torso. The terror that instantly compounded into a heavy sludge in your gut.

In an instant, fear snapped into focus, and you swiftly knocked the man out and found your way to an exit.

There wasn’t a moment for you to catch your breath as you straddled your motorcycle and peeled down the road, away from the facility. You ducked and cranked the throttle when bullets whizzed past you.

Embarrassingly, the thought of having to explain to Fury how you fucked up brought tears to your eyes, so you made a split-second decision. You haphazardly swung right at the next intersection, ignoring the honks and shouts that followed you. You sped away from SHIELD headquarters and gritted your teeth.

Maybe it was the blood loss, or the fact that you were numb with adrenaline and panic, but you were headed towards a place you had only been a few times — strictly on invitation. But it was the only place you could think of that would take you in if you showed up verging on death.

“If she’s not here,” you wheezed to yourself, stepping off of your bike and limping through the dark parking garage. “I’ll just check her other place. Yeah. I’ll check the other place.”

No matter how many times you repeated that to yourself, by the time you had dragged yourself to her door, you knew you had no chance of getting anywhere else. You were already dangerously lightheaded, swaying with every knock you landed.

At some point you collapsed against it. You didn’t want to believe that she wasn’t home. You couldn’t.

Your name, foggy and distorted, pulled you from comfortable darkness. Hands shook your shoulders, and someone called your name again.

Natasha’s face blurred into focus. There was a crease between her eyebrows. “What happened?”

The day came flooding back, and with it, the pain. “Mission,” you breathed weakly.

The corners of her mouth quirked up, her eyes brightening. “Mission?”

“Didn’t really go well,” you finished, glancing down at your shirt. It was soaked through with blood.

Natasha’s gaze followed yours, and a heavy sigh escaped her lips. “Why didn’t you go back to SHIELD?”

You swallowed.

After a moment of thick silence, she stood up from her crouched position and grabbed your hands, pulling you to your feet with ease. Your vision immediately went black and you slumped against her.

“Okay,” she mumbled, trying to quiet the fear roaring inside of her. “Okay, let’s get you inside.”

When you came to for a second time, it was nearly sunrise, and Natasha sat beside you on the couch, watching a muted hockey game. Your shirt was off, leaving you in a sports bra, and your stomach was wrapped in clean white gauze. When you shifted, her attention immediately snapped to you.

“Morning,” she said quietly, her expression an amalgamation of amusement and concern.

You forced a small smile. In truth, your head was pounding like it never had before.

As if she read your mind, she reached over to the coffee table and grabbed the painkillers and glass of water sitting, ready. She offered them to you gently.

When you had chugged the entire glass, sighed dramatically, and leaned back, she spoke.

“So are you going to tell me why I came home and found you bleeding out at my door at midnight?”

You didn’t want to, but then again you had no choice. “Got shot,” you grunted.

“Yeah, I noticed that,” she bit. “Why?”

“Mission went wrong.” You screwed your eyes shut, willing the pain away.

“I’m gonna need more information than that.”

“Didn’t wanna go to SHIELD.”

She seemed to realize that her hard attitude wasn’t going to get her anywhere. She took a deep breath and looked at you — really looked at you. The dark circles under your eyes, the sunkenness of your cheeks, the slight shaking of your hunched shoulders. The bruises covering you. Her heart clenched.

“What happened?” she asked, this time softly. It caught you off guard.

“I-” your voice broke, and you closed your mouth before a sob could escape.

“Oh, baby,” she mumbled, pulling you into her arms, careful not to strain your wound. “It’s okay.”

You hid your face in her neck, holding back more tears. Her arms wrapped around you securely, holding you so tightly you didn’t think she’d ever let go. You didn’t want her to let go.

“It’s okay,” she repeated, kissing your hair.

“I messed up,” you whimpered. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I-”

“All that matters is that you’re okay,” Natasha said. “Understand? That’s all that matters.”

You couldn’t stop the hot tears from rolling down your cheeks. “But the mission…”

“The mission doesn’t matter.”

She sounded so sure of herself, you couldn’t even argue. Maybe she would talk to Fury for you. Maybe it would be okay.

White-hot guilt shot through you. Who were you to show up at her doorstep like this? To force her to care for you, and then expect her to save you from Fury’s wrath? Sure, you weren’t strangers, but this was asking too much. You shouldn’t have been making her worry. You shouldn’t have kept her up all night. You shouldn’t have gotten hurt in the first place — no. This was all your fault.

You wanted to act on your guilt, push her away and block her out, but your body wasn’t listening to your brain. Your hands refused to move, except to grip her shirt tighter. All you could manage to do was squeak out another apology. “I’m sorry.”

“Shhh,” she whispered, stroking your back. “It’s okay.”

You couldn’t help but break down sobbing. After a few minutes, Natasha reassuring you and whispering your name like a prayer, you found yourself taking a deep breath.

“I want to take you to headquarters,” she murmured into your hair.

Your breath caught in your throat.

“Just for the injuries,” she rushed to say, quick to continue rubbing your back. You sighed in relief. “It’s okay that a mission went bad. It happens to everyone.”

You shook your head against her. “No, this was, it didn’t go bad, I fucked it up.”

“That’s okay.”

“I shouldn’t have made a mistake,” you croaked, pulling away from her. Your hair stuck to your red, tear-streaked face, and she still placed a gentle kiss on your forehead. She still looked at you with nothing but care in her eyes.

“I don’t care that you made a mistake.”

Yet again, she’d caught you off guard. You couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

“What was the mission?” she asked quietly, slowly moving strands of hair out of your face.

“I had to recover these stupid computer chips,” you scoffed, looking down.

“What happened to the chips?”

You pulled them out of the pocket on your pant leg and tossed them onto the coffee table. Natasha’s eyebrows flew up.

“So you didn’t mess up. You completed the mission.”

You bit the inside of your cheek. “They weren’t supposed to know I was there.”

“So what?” she laughed, genuinely laughed, and you looked up. “You still won.”

Oh. Maybe it wasn’t such a big deal after all.

Her eyes softened and she brushed more hair off of your face before kissing your forehead again. “You did good.”

That sent you into another crying fit, but Natasha didn’t mind. She would happily spend the rest of her life drying your tears. She held you close to her chest, lightly scratching the base of your scalp.

You couldn’t believe how soft she was. Soft, and cozy, and you never wanted to leave her arms.

#natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha x reader #marvel #mcu #black widow #black widow x reader #hurt/comfort #fluff #scarlett johansson #scarlett johansson x reader #scarlett x reader #scarlett

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softgreengrass · 1 year

Text

Covert Narcissism

Wednesday Addams x reader

Summary: There's a new student at Nevermore, and she's certainly captured your attention.

Words: 3.8k

Warnings: swearing ig, otherwise none, implied f!reader

Author's Note: not angst!!! reader is a cocky little shit. there's a prank war. this was meant to be like half the length that it turned out oh well. thank u guys so much for all the support, i was so not expecting it! thank u thank u thank u thank u 💙💙💙

A new student at Nevermore. You had heard the rumors, seen Enid’s blog post about staying a safe distance away from her roommate, but nothing could’ve prepared you for the girl who walked into your world history class.

She looked utterly terrifying, in the way that made your head buzz and your stomach turn. She was also undeniably beautiful, with full lips and silky black hair, dead eyes dropped into a dangerous stare.

She sat down at an empty table in the center of the room — a safe choice, an attempt to blend in, a chance to observe.

Of course, you weren’t going to let her get away with that.

You got up from your seat in the back row and shuffled over, sliding into the chair right next to her.

Her side-eye was deadly as she pulled out a black notebook.

“Hey there,” you said, laying on the charm as thick as possible.

“Can I help you?” she replied, expressionless.

“Where are you from?” you leaned back, gazing at the curve of her cheekbone. “Wait, let me guess. Tennessee?”

Her eyes hardened. “If you finish that sentence, I’ll hang your intestines like a chandelier.”

She didn’t understand the twinkle in your eye, or why all you did was laugh. “Because you’re the only ten I see.”

She grabbed a pen from her bag, clicking it to reveal a glinting blade. “Would you like this to be driven through your eye socket?”

“Take me out first, would you?”

You bit back another laugh at the fury that flashed across her face. Then the history teacher cleared his throat, signifying the start of class.

His lecture droned on and on about the Trans-Saharan Trade Network, and you busied yourself with slowly inching closer to her. She noticed, you knew she did, but she also didn’t bother moving, so you took that as an invitation. But as soon as you reached over to her notebook, pencil not yet touching paper, her hand shot out to grab your wrist.

Her grip was ice-cold, tight enough to cut off circulation. You swallowed.

“Do not test me,” she muttered.

You lifted your palms in surrender, eyes wide. You hadn’t expected her to be so physical about it.

Reluctantly, she let you go, and you rubbed your wrist as you shifted back over to your side of the desk. You decided to try to focus on the lecture for the rest of class, but by the third mention of concubines, you were zoned out and staring at the clock.

You couldn’t really tell what she was doing. It looked like she was taking notes, sure, but her eyes were glazed over and she could’ve been writing “asshole” over and over for all you knew.

She was almost deathly pale, her breathing so shallow you weren’t sure she really was alive. Her braids were absolutely meticulous, not a strand out of place. Her uniform was black and gray. You remembered the argument you had had with Weems when you first arrived at Nevermore — you demanded that you be allowed to wear something other than that godawful uniform, and she refused to relent, until eventually you were stuck scrubbing the floors in detention, striped blue blazer on. Of course the new girl would get special privileges.

There was something striking about her sunken eyes, about her perfect posture, about the fact that she was a new student at Nevermore in the middle of the first quarter. You tried to take in every part of her that you could: black nail polish, reddish lips, defined jawline, firm glare.

“It’s very obvious that you’re staring,” she muttered, still writing down her magical spells or whatnot.

“Is that a problem?” you asked.

“Only if you value your life.”

“You are just a ball of sunshine, aren’t you?”

“You cannot take a hint, can you?” she snapped, turning to face you, eyes narrowing. “I’m not interested.”

“Everyone’s interested,” you smirked, glancing down at her lips and back up to dark eyes.

She ignored you for the rest of the period, properly ignored you, and you tried not to be too bothered by it. You watched, laughing with your friends, as she challenged Bianca to a bout during fencing. Wednesday Addams was going to learn how things worked at Nevermore.

It was quite simple, really. Nobody tried to best Bianca, and nobody ignored you. For most, it wasn’t a problem at all. You had girls fawning over you left and right, plus the occasional pig-headed boy who thought he’d be the exception. Even if someone didn’t want to sleep with you, they wanted to be your friend, and while there weren’t any popularity contests at Nevermore, you would’ve won them all.

But Wednesday Addams wouldn’t give you the time of day for a week after she arrived. So, you decided to play her game.

“Heard about those murders in the woods?” you asked, sidling up next to her as she walked briskly down the hallway.

Wednesday didn’t respond.

“What if I told you I’m the killer?”

Her head snapped to look at you, and you grinned triumphantly. “You’re not capable of that.”

“Ouch,” you clutched your heart, lengthening your strides to keep up with her quickening pace. “Come on, you don’t know that. I could be a killer.”

“But you aren’t,” she said impatiently.

“Why don’t you like me?” you asked earnestly, watching carefully for any twitches or flutters that might betray a reaction.

She replied without missing a beat. “Because you’re insufferable.”

“Bullshit,” you laughed.

Turning on her heel, she took an abrupt left turn, and you were forced to continue to your next class. You spent it brainstorming ways to irritate her, since her reaction was bound to be interesting, and soon you had a plan.

The problem was, you only had one class with her, and it seemed like she actively avoided you in the hallways. You had never been close with Enid, certainly not close enough to get into her dorm, and you weren’t going to embarrass yourself by asking around.

So for a while, you kept to annoying her in world history, laughing at every dirty look and death threat she responded with. It wasn’t as if you didn’t have other people to occupy your time.

When you caught Thing digging into the moisturizer drawer in the infirmary, a golden opportunity presented itself before you. You snatched him, holding the writhing hand until he stopped squirming and listened to what you had to say. You told him he would either help you prank Wednesday, or he would spend the rest of the week firmly duct-taped to the ceiling of Weems’ office.

Was it a threat? Yes. But you needed an inside man if you were going to have any shot of holding your own in the war you were about to start.

Eventually he agreed, after trying everything possible to free himself from your grasp, including flicking lotion into your eyes. You nearly slammed him into the table for that.

By the end of the day, you had already arranged your first prank: Thing stole Wednesday’s book of sheet music, and you replaced each piece with “I Want It That Way” for cello. The next morning, you woke up to dozens of plastic cups full of blood on the floor of your dorm, packed so close together that you had no hope of avoiding knocking them over.

So, you were late to class with blood-stained shoes. And as the blood you couldn’t sop up dried, your floor warped, looking more like mahogany than white oak.

And it was on.

World history became a battleground: you pulled a few strategic screws from her chair so it would collapse the moment she sat down, she coated your side of the desk in superglue, you told the teacher she had volunteered to give a lecture about the dissolution of Yugoslavia, she set fire to your pants in the middle of class.

“Unoriginal,” she deadpanned, looking down at the dead snake dumped inside of her bookbag. “Did you kill it?”

You shook your head, realizing too late that you had just knocked yourself down a few points.

“Disappointing.”

Your plan had worked perfectly — Wednesday spoke to you now. Nearly all of it was insults, but she was still speaking to you. The pranks escalated, and Wednesday’s death threats became more and more detailed, until you finally decided it was time to gain the upper hand. She had always committed the more gruesome pranks, always been the aggressive one, but you wanted control now. You were going to get a reaction out of her that wasn’t just anger at your defiance.

Enid and Wednesday were long gone, off to investigate some old mansion. You let yourself into their dorm, holding the biggest basket you could find, and swung open the doors to Wednesday’s wardrobe.

Under the cover of night, no one saw you carrying heaps of clothes outside or hauling them into a bleach-filled barrel. No one saw the assortment of dyes you had prepared: various shades of pink, pastel yellow and green, periwinkle blue.

You laughed quietly to yourself as you hung her clothes back up, leaving them to dry in her wardrobe overnight. There was no way she would be able to top this — there wasn’t a single aspect of your character vulnerable to an attack of this magnitude. You would defeat her here.

Wednesday didn’t show up to any of her classes the next day, but the wide-eyed looks Enid gave you were all the confirmation you needed. Maybe she would go back to ignoring you, but at least you would have won. You kept your head held high, your smile wide as you went about your day.

You should’ve known she wouldn’t have let you win so easily.

In the middle of a restful night’s sleep, you were awoken by a loud hum. At first, through the fog of drowsiness, you thought the heater had finally kicked on.

Then you felt the first few brush against your hand, and your eyes shot open. In a flash, an entire horde of bees was on you, stinging every inch of exposed skin. You screamed, waving your arms, and bees flooded your mouth. You didn't realize that the perpetrator was still standing in the shadows of your room.

You jumped out of bed, vision entirely blocked by the swarm, stumbling around not unlike a headless chicken. You swiped at your arms and face, feeling stingers drag down your skin, feeling prick after prick and feeling tingly swelling.

“You didn’t really think you would get away with something like that, did you?” Wednesday said blankly, tilting her head as she watched you struggle.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” you cried, shaking your limbs vigorously to get the thousands of tiny legs off of you.

“Do you surrender?” she smirked. You couldn’t see it, or you would have made a big deal out of it.

“Yes, Jesus Christ!” you exclaimed, scratching at your eyes and spitting out bees. “I surrender, you win, get them off!”

Wednesday picked up the smoker beside her and began spraying you. The bees slowly fell to the floor, asleep, and you stood shaking, red and swollen. You felt like an idiot and a half. What were you thinking, provoking the girl who got here for murdering someone?

“I accept your surrender,” she said, using a broom to scoop the bees into a drawstring bag.

“I would hope so,” you mumbled, looking at the bumps covering your arms, tensing your muscles to resist the urge to itch them. “How the hell do you have so many bees?”

“I’m a Hummer,” she said simply.

The nurse gave you a big tub of lotion and a few antihistamines, and you spent the next two days cooped up in your room, wishing death upon Wednesday Addams and her bees.

When you finally returned to your classes, Wednesday watched, amusement swimming somewhere deep in her eyes. The itchiness had somewhat subsided, but you still had to wear long sleeves and deflect countless questions about what happened to your face.

“Not so cocky now, are we?” Wednesday asked you in world history, nearly smiling at the way your face twisted in anger.

“There’s a line between a practical joke and assault,” you bit.

“I don’t believe there is.”

You couldn’t argue with that. So you sat fuming for the rest of class and the days that followed. After a week, there were no remaining physical signs of what she had done, but your psyche would be scarred forever. And of course, it was then that Weems called you into her office for a favor.

“Why would I do that?” you asked, scrunching up your face.

“To put it simply,” she sighed, leaning forward over her desk. “The Sheriff needs Wednesday to be here at school on the night of the Rave’N.”

“Why do I have to take her?”

“Oh, please,” she smiled slyly. “Just ask her, alright? I’ll owe you.”

You raised your eyebrows, weighing your options. Get Wednesday to go to a dance with you, or be on Weems’ bad side again. You didn’t know when you had gotten off of it, but you certainly weren’t in a hurry to return. Besides, the least Wednesday could do after nearly murdering you was go to a dance with you.

“Fine.”

“I’m not going to the dance,” was Wednesday’s response, quick as a whip.

You weren’t the least bit surprised. “But I asked you nicely.”

“I am not participating in another pointless childish tradition.”

“But I’m asking you to go with me. To be my date,” you pouted, watching as she scowled at you.

“Perhaps you need to have your memory checked. I’ve already told you I’m not interested.”

“Don’t you owe me something? After, you know, traumatizing me for life?”

“Weak,” she muttered under her breath. “No, I don’t believe I do. You don’t owe me something for ruining my entire wardrobe, do you?”

“Actually,” you said quickly. “That was pretty harsh. What would you like me to do?”

“Not take me to the dance.”

You shook your head, smiling. “That’s not how favors work, I’m afraid. Come on, name anything. I’ll do it.”

You couldn’t believe you were doing this for Weems.

She eyed you suspiciously. “If I go to the Rave’N with you, you’ll do anything I want?”

You resisted the urge to clarify, nodding your head.

“Fine. Pick me up at eight.”

She pushed you out of her dorm, slamming the door in your face. You stood there, bewildered, until you realized you needed to get ready. You had managed to get her to go to a school dance — that was something, right?

A few hours later, your knuckles rapped against the door twice, and you took a step back. You repeated some assurances to yourself, looking down at your feet until the door opened.

The sight of her took your breath away for a moment.

Wednesday was as beautiful as she had been when you first saw her, her hair pinned back, her lips plump and dark. Her dress was black and elegant, and your heart seized as she met your eyes.

“You look ravishing, darling,” you said, grinning widely as her nostrils flared.

She wanted to throttle you as you stepped inside and said hello to Enid.

“Now, where were we?” you spun to face Wednesday. “I believe you were telling me to rip off my arm and shove it up my ass, correct?”

“Always so crude,” Wednesday muttered, digging through a black backpack. “I told you to burn eternally under the hand of a cruel god.”

“Oh, my bad.”

Enid took a hesitant step forward. “Are you guys going to the dance?”

You shot her a strange look. “Yes.”

Enid stifled a sound of surprise, watching as Wednesday pulled a tube of lipstick from her bag and applied a layer. “Oh. Well, have fun! See you down there!” She slipped between you and shut the door on her way out, leaving you in one of the most awkward situations you had ever had the pleasure of experiencing.

Wednesday looked utterly exasperated as she looked at you. “Well?”

“I, um,” you swallowed. “Are you ready?”

She blinked. “Yes.”

“Okay,” you cleared your throat. “Shall we?”

Wednesday’s arm was in yours as you walked down the stairs, some electro-pop song growing louder and louder with each step you took. You were quite pleased with yourself: you were going to walk in with Wednesday Addams on your arm. Not a big deal.

She stared steadily through her eyebrows as you approached the iced-out hall, ignoring Thornhill and Weems as they greeted you. It didn't take long to find Enid.

To your surprise, Wednesday didn't seem to despise the decor, though she certainly despised most of the attendees. Xavier and Lucas were both subjected to death-glares of the highest caliber.

After you both had a few Yeti-tinis in you, you dragged Wednesday to the dance floor. And then, something unbelievable happened. It was probably rarer than a total solar eclipse, and you didn't think many who had witnessed it had survived.

Wednesday Addams began to dance.

She stared at you unrelentingly as she moved, looking somewhere between a bird doing a mating dance and a teenager possessed with the spirit. You could do nothing but watch, hypnotized, as she danced around you.

You had never seen anyone move so freely. It really was spellbinding, and you could feel the entire dance floor watching her. But she was staring at you.

And then the song was over, and you were left standing and looking at each other again. There was something magical in the air.

Everyone else was lost in the music, already dancing again without a care in the world, and the floor vibrated with the bass, and she looked absolutely ethereal in the blueish light. You didn't know anything, except that you couldn't stop smiling. If you didn't know better, you would've thought she might kiss you.

Something dripped onto your shoulder, and then your head, and then it was raining down. Blood.

In moments, pure chaos broke loose. Screams overpowered the music, the floor turning into a grisly slip-n-slide as people rushed away from the shower.

There was a smile on her face, a smile, a smile on Wednesday Addams’ face. Everyone else was sprinting for the nearest exit, and she was smiling, and you were staring at her.

“Did you do this?” she asked.

You rubbed the back of your neck, face burning with the shame about to come. “No.”

Her face fell, but she would deny it if you ever told anyone. You didn’t plan to. “Oh.” She licked her lip. "They couldn't even spring for real pigs' blood, anyway. It's only paint."

The enchantment drained from the air along with her excitement, and you no longer wanted to be coated in red paint, so you parted ways with her and retreated to your dorm.

The next day, you found yourself in the quad with Wednesday and Enid, assigned to confetti clean-up.

“Aren’t you tired?” you asked.

Wednesday looked at you. “Why would I be tired?”

“You’ve been running through my mind all day,” you grinned, watching the familiar flare of irritation appear in her eyes.

“I’ll hide your body parts all over the country.”

“I’ll sweep you off your feet,” you winked.

“I’ll skin you alive.”

Enid laughed nervously, glancing between the two of you. “Um, no killing, right?”

“She won’t kill me,” you said smugly, leaning back.

Wednesday gritted her teeth, wanting more than ever to slit your throat. “Oh, but how I hate you.”

She stood up, muttering something about needing to write her novel, and stalked away. You smiled to yourself, already reminiscing on the annoyance written all over her face. You started thinking of other cheesy pickup lines — maybe you’d have to watch some rom-coms for inspiration.

Enid said your name, staring at you incredulously. You snapped to attention. “Oh my god, don’t you see it? Wednesday likes you!”

What? You shake your head, laughing slightly. “No, no, she hates me.”

Enid jumped up and down, squealing. “She likes you!”

“No, she doesn’t.”

Grasping your hands in hers, she beamed at you. “Oh wow, this is such a big day. I mean, I didn’t even know if, wow, I didn’t think this was possible! Ooh, this is so exciting!”

“Enid!” you said sharply, glaring at her until she stopped hopping.

“She doesn’t like me, we’re not even really friends. We just prank each other.”

“Did you not see the way she blushed?” she furrowed her eyebrows.

You thought back. Wednesday had glowered at you, jaw clenched. Her skin was as pale as ever. “No?”

“You’re blind,” Enid giggled. “She was like, bright red for her. She so likes you.”

You shook your head again, mind racing. Could it be? You played back every moment you could remember: each prank, each mean-spirited remark, each heated argument. She had never been anything but stone-faced, her tone never anything more than irritated. Why would she like you?

You could’ve laughed — if it were anyone else, you’d never even dream of asking that question. But it was Wednesday. You had accepted that she’d never want anything from you. You had accepted that.

What if she did like you? Did you like her? Well, she was beautiful, obviously. She had exactly your sense of humor. But you had never really liked someone like that. Enough to flirt, to touch, to go a little farther. But in a truly romantic sense? A genuine sense?

Shit. You liked Wednesday.

You rushed out of the quad, ignoring Enid’s excited questions, and stumbled over your feet as you made your way to Wednesday’s dorm. On the way, you tried to figure out the best way to ask her without activating her fight or flight, without getting punched in the nose for being too forward.

You caught your breath for a few seconds before knocking.

“What do you want?” she asked, glare colder than usual.

You smiled sheepishly, remembering how it felt to be swarmed by hungry bees. “I come in peace, I swear.”

“What do you want?” she repeated.

“Can I come in?”

She rolled her eyes, stepping aside with a huff and letting you enter. You glanced at the pile of new black clothes on her bed and turned to face her as she closed the door.

Suddenly, everything you had planned flew right out of your head. “Um, Enid said, Enid said that you like me?”

Wednesday’s eyes widened, her heart thundering in her chest. Of all the things she expected you to say, that was at the absolute bottom of the list.

“I, I don’t know if that’s true,” you said, pretending like your voice wasn’t shaking. You weren’t sure where all of your usual confidence was. “But, I think I like you too.”

Somehow, this was the most terrifying thing you’d ever experienced. Your hands were shaky, your heart beating so fast it could’ve been vibrating, your mouth dry.

Wednesday took a small, hesitant step towards you, her head tilted up. And, after you forgot how to breathe, her lips met yours. They were soft, and warmer than you expected, and gentle as they moved against yours. Your hands found their way to her face, hers gripped your waist. The moment could’ve lasted minutes or hours; it was all the same. It was only you and her.

“Shit,” you breathed as you pulled away, looking at her with blown pupils. Slowly, you grinned. “I knew you were interested.”

“I’m not above burying you alive, you know,” she said, not a hint of emotion in her voice, before pulling you back in for another kiss.

#wednesday addams #wednesday #wednesday series #wednesday x reader #wednesday addams x reader #wednesday show #jenna ortega #jenna ortega x reader

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