Chapter Text
Step 1: It All Crumbles Down
Natasha was exhausted. She came back from a mission not two hours before and there she was, heading to a Stark's party with Clint.
She knew she couldn't miss it, everybody was going to be there, but she also felt like it would just be a waste of her time. All she wanted was to go home, curl up on her bed and sleep for twenty hours straight.
But she changed and followed Clint around silently, instead.
“Cheer up” he told her smirking. “A special someone is going to be there.”
That was the only reason Natasha wasn't currently faking her own death.
She was going to go back after two weeks away from home, she was going to see that someone again and she was going to make things right. She felt like, in the past few months, everything she did was a constant string of screw-ups. But that mission she came back from, it changed things. She was ready to make it right, whatever the cost might be.
The night, however, didn't quite turn out as she wanted.
They went to the party, said hello to all the guests already there. They ordered their drinks, then got into a conversation with Barnes. He was much more comfortable in his own skin those days, so he was smiling, telling them a story that made every woman who was listening fake a laugh because of his charming attitude.
That was the moment he chose to lay a hand on Natasha's upper arm, in a slow gesture which could not be mistaken for anything other than flirting.
She slightly turned her head, studying his attitude. She didn't pay him particular attention since she let him and Steve escape during their fight against Stark, but now everybody was back on good terms and he and his team weren't outlaws anymore, so she didn't have to worry about him. In fact, she didn't even think about him until then.
“Careful. I know that look” Banner said, joining the conversation.
Natasha turned to him, her expression next to blank. If he saw that one look before, he surely mistaken it for something it wasn't, because it was barely more than confusion.
“You're one step from her web” he went on. “I would know, we've had a sort of” he shrugged “thing a couple years ago.”
Natasha wanted to scoff at him, to say something among the line of “you wish”, but for some reason, maybe because of how bone tired she felt, she didn't. She took a sip of her drink and masked her sigh.
“They do say you learn something new everyday.”
That voice.
She knew that voice.
“Maria Hill, as I live and breathe, finally gracing us with her presence” Stark lost no time in joining them as soon as she spotted the woman.
“My boss forced me to come” she said shortly. “Even if it might have been my boss' noisy boyfriend for all I know” she raised an eyebrow at him.
He chuckled and handed her a glass. “Whiskey on the rocks, cold and bitter just like my favorite employee.”
Maria smirked, taking the offered glass.
“So you and Romanoff” he said, turning towards Banner. “Please, do tell. How did you romance her?”
“She was the one who romanced me, actually” he said in a light tone.
Natasha felt an uneasy and heavy feeling settling on the pit of her stomach.
“Anyway, it was a long time ago. Apparently she and Barnes are the new hot topic” he joked, not knowing he was actually doing a lot of damage.
“No, we're not” Natasha said in a natural yet flat tone. “We should get to the table, the other guests are sitting down” she pointed out.
She was going to try to sit next to Maria, in order to explain immediately what was said, but Pepper had of course assigned the places.
She kept, thorough the entire dinner, stealing glances towards Maria, to spot some kind of reaction or clue about what she was thinking, but she managed to be as neutral as Natasha herself was trying to be.
She knew she had screwed up before, that she had a lot to make amends for, but what was said that night couldn't be the reason Maria finally gave up on her, could it? Out of all the things she handled wrongly, that wasn't one of them. It was just not true.
And yet that feeling of uneasiness got bigger and bigger.
Tony was sitting between Maria and Pepper, Natasha was in front of Pepper and by her side was Clint, so at least she could hear the conversations Maria had.
“I'm glad we're all together again” Tony said at some point, sighing deeply. “To friends” he said, raising his glass. “And to love.”
Maria scoffed under her breath.
Both Pepper and Tony turned to her, and she slowly looked at them back.
“Sorry, it came out before I could stop it” she said, not meaning the apology one bit.
“Cynic much, Hill?” Tony raised an eyebrow.
She shrugged. “I will toast to friends” she said, raising her own glass and touching Tony's before drinking.
He drank as well, then put down his glass. They went on eating but he didn't drop the subject.
“What did love ever do to you?” he asked over dramatically.
“Nothing” she said too quickly.
“It's not like you're the only single at the table” Sam said, he was sitting in front of her and joined in on the conversation.
“Well, being single and being cynical are two different things” Banner said from Sam's side that wasn't occupied by Clint.
“Maria isn't cynical” Sharon pointed out from Maria's left. “She's just in a bad mood.”
“I'm realistic” Maria retorted.
“Realistic about love not being something to toast about?” Natasha couldn't help herself.
Maria met her eyes for the first time since she arrived. And something inside them, something was different. Something was broken.
She looked away again, then answered Natasha's question.
“Love is bizarre. You wake up one day and it's gone. It keeps eluding me how, how you can love someone so much that it makes you build your entire life around them and then, almost suddenly, it changes. People fall out of love all the time. It's such a strange concept to me” she frowned, taking another sip of her drink. “But it is quite common for others.”
“That is very, very cynical, I stand by what I said” Banner carefully said. “This is not a critic, on the contrary, I think you're right. Love ends, it's sad, but it's true.”
“Statistically, in the United States, only one marriage out of two lasts” Jane pointed out from her seat next to Banner.
“That is very different from Asgard” Thor noted from her side.
“And you're talking about marriages, but if you think about relationships the percentage must be much higher, because a lot of those end long before marriage” Sharon pointed out.
“It's estimated that one human has an average of eight relationships before marriage” Vision enunciated. “And kisses between fifteen and forty people.”
“So you will have your heart broken eight times before marriage?” Steve asked, a little puzzled.
“You might have to go back to being frozen for a while, because you're nowhere near that” Tony chuckled at his own joke.
“Or just once” Maria said. “If it's broken badly enough.”
“So you did believe in love” Bucky intervened. “What happened?”
Maria shrugged and looked at him with half a smile.
“I learned the hard way that, if you build your life around someone else, everything crumbles down the moment they move.”
“Are we” Tony grimaced, his tone was very concerned. “Talking about Fury? He's the only man I've ever seen you remotely respect. Isn't him a bit too old for you?” his expression was a mixture of worry and disgust.
Maria slapped his arm. “I threw the last man whom insinuated I might have slept with one of my superiors off of an Helicarrier without a parachute” she told him coldly.
“That is true” Clint said with an heavy tone. “But to be fair, she did threw one after me” he conceded, nodding slightly.
The conversation slipped away from the topic and they kept chatting until Maria excused herself to answer a phone call.
She knew her cell wasn't really ringing. She knew what her move was. She was going to bail on the party, so she slipped unseen out of the door and in the hallway.
Just as she anticipated, she heard Maria made up an excuse and tell Pepper and Tony it had been a pleasure but she had to leave early for an unfortunate emergency.
A couple of minutes later she exited through the same door Natasha did a few minutes before.
She walked straight for the elevator.
“Banner? Really?”
Natasha didn't ask her how she knew she was already there, nor did she hesitated to catch up with her immediately, walking by her side.
“You have to know that isn't true.”
“He seemed honest. Why lie?” she pressed the elevator button a little too forcefully. “You know what, just save it, Natasha.”
“Please, let's not do this here. I'll come home, we can talk about this, we can talk about everything. I've been thinking a lot about these past few months, and I think we both know there's too much to say to settle this in an hallway.”
“You are absolutely right.”
The elevator arrived and she stepped in, resolutely avoiding Natasha's eyes. Natasha glanced back, knowing she had to go back, she just had to, it was the first evening all the Avengers were back together and she couldn't just disappear, it didn't matter how much she wanted to.
“We'll talk as soon as I get home.”
“I'm not coming home” she chuckled humorlessly. “Home” she repeated bitterly.
Natasha frowned.
“You just agreed we can't do this in an hallway.”
She sighed and nodded. Finally she looked up, meeting those green eyes. Natasha saw unshaded tears in hers.
“I want a divorce. Come to my office Monday morning, I'll have the papers ready by then.”
Without giving her the time to replay, the elevator doors slide close.
She kept staring at them long after Maria was gone.
Natasha had been a mess for the whole weekend. She prepared half a dozen different speeches, only to try to come up with something better again and again.
In the end, she made a list of everything she thought about apologizing for, everything she wanted to explain – including the fake news about Banner and herself or Barnes and herself – and decided she would just say everything she had to, hoping Maria wouldn't shoot her in order to silence her. At that point, she was a little worried she might, since she was so adamant about not listening to her that she didn't return any of Natasha's calls, nor did she let her know where she was staying or how she was doing.
So on Monday she ended her pity party, finally took a shower, dressed in an outfit she knew Maria would like, and headed to Stark Industries.
She would be lying if she said she wasn't nervous, but there was no avoiding this confrontation, and she was also a little anxious to clear things up.
She knocked on her office door and entered as soon as the weak “come in” reached her ears, closing the door back behind her.
“Maria, I know what you said Friday, but this is insane, you can't leave me without even hearing out my side of the story” she started right away, already mentally going over the main points of her speech again.
“We're not getting a divorce” Maria cut her off immediately.
Natasha paused and took a better look at her.
She looked tired, very much so, she was slumped on her chair and it was very unlike her to be anything but perfect on the job. Her chair was slightly reclined, her elbow was firm on her armrest and her fingers picked at the skin of her lips.
The chair was turned to the wall, almost parallel to her desk, like she was doing her best not to stare at the door waiting for Natasha to come in.
She stopped picking at her skin to motion the chair in front of her and turned to finally face the redhead.
“Sit down” she instructed.
Natasha complied, a little baffled.
“We're not?” she whispered. “I mean, of course we're not, that would be insane, because we're still in love with each other” she said in a more confident tone. Then her eyes fell to the papers in front of Maria, that looked a lot formal. “Aren't we?” she asked, back to a whisper.
“We're not getting a divorce, because” she sighed, sliding the papers she had in front of her towards Natasha. “We're getting a kid.”
She snorted. That sentence wasn't real. That sentence was actually probably illegal.
Maria kept looking at her, deadly serious.
“No, you can't be serious.”
She took the papers and started reading them.
“They accepted our application now? We did it three years ago.”
“Don't you think I know that?” Maria retorted a little harshly.
“Maria, please. You wanted to divorce me three days ago” she tried to reason with her.
“I'm still going to divorce you” she confirmed. “Eventually.”
“Are you hearing yourself right now?” she sighed deeply and sat on the edge of her chair. “It sounds like you want us to just foster a kid, sign all the papers, adopt them, and then what? After it's legally our kid get the divorce?”
Maria kept looking down at her desk.
“Oh my God” she whispered, slumping back in her seat. “That is exactly what you want to do” she realized.
“I've wanted a kid for years, you know this. If we refuse this and I try again as a single parent it could take a decade, or it might never happen. You know how much this means to me” she told her in a low voice that moved Natasha in a way she didn't think she could be moved before the day she met Maria. Her heart ached. “You don't have to be involved if you don't want to. It's going to be my kid, you can walk away, you're so good at that” she went back to the cold tone she had been using before.
Natasha shook her head furiously.
“Absolutely not. You know why I agreed to this” she pointed to the papers in question. “Why it meant so much to me, too.”
“Then we can raise her together.”
“Her?” she said without even realizing it.
“Natasha, this girl has been to ten different houses in the last three years. I read her file, the last three couples presented with her case said they weren't willing to take her in. She's already eight years old and her chances at being adopted decrease every year significantly” her voice cracked at the end. “What if we're her last chance? What if we're her best chance?”
Natasha kept looking in those eyes she loved, she saw the pain of a child abused by her father and she saw the infinite amount of love Maria had to give to a kid of her own.
Her eyes fell on the file again. She slowly picked it back up and turned page after page, until she saw the description of the girl they wanted to place with them.
“Mackanzie Nichols.”
She read the name out loud and put the file back down.
“No, this is insane. We can't do this.”
“Natasha, please. This is the one thing I'm asking from you, you can take everything you want in the divorce, you can ride off into the sunset with Banner or Barnes or whomever you want to. I won't even mention that you cheated on me, you won't have to give me one single explanation about anything.”
“I never cheated on you” she raised her voice. “I never even considered it!”
“Sure, if it makes you feel better” Maria murmured. “You told me the other night you thought about the last few months. Did you?”
“Yes” she said immediately. “I know I wasn't fair to you. I know that keeping this a secret was a mistake, I know that running every time I should have stayed was a mistake. But this isn't the way I make things right, Maria. It just isn't.”
“It's the only way you have, Natasha. You either sign the adoption papers or the divorce papers. I endured a lot, a lot” she chuckled humorlessly. “You've known me a decade, we've been married more than six years and all your friends still think you're single. Although, as suggested by recent developments, that might actually be because you want to sleep with some of them.”
“Okay, I get that you're hurt” Natasha said harshly. “But I did nothing of the sort. So here's the deal, if we do this, you have to hear me out.”
“I just can't” her voice cracked and for the first time Natasha realized how much hurt she must have been since she was usually so in control of her own emotions. “I can't hear you lie anymore, and I don't think I'm ready to hear the truth.”
Natasha knew she screwed up, but this was on a level she didn't even imagine. She never actually contemplated the idea of losing Maria, because she was sure – she had been for a decade – that whenever she came home, Maria would be there to fix her.
She had driven away the one person she had always loved far more than life itself.
“Not today, then. And not all at once. But someday soon, you'll have to let me explain. I never lied to you, I never will. And above all, you can trust I'm honest when I say these words: I will always be in love with you, even if you leave me I'll keep loving you for the rest of my life.”
Before she could remind herself of how crazy it was, she picked up a pen and signed the papers on the desk.
“You never gave up on me, not even when I tried to give up on myself. I hoped I would never see the day you finally did, so I'm sorry I brought us to this.”
Maria shook her head as if she wanted to say something, but couldn't bring herself to.
“Please come home. That couch cannot be comfortable” she tilted her head in the direction of her crumpled up office couch. “I'll stay out of your way, I can sleep in the living room.”
Maria sighed and almost laughed despite herself.
“There are three perfectly good guest rooms.”
“No, there aren't” Natasha pointed out. “One of those it's going to be a regularly used bedroom by sundown.”
“There are still two perfectly good guest rooms.”
Natasha just shrugged. “I'm not a guest. That's my home, too.”
She got up and turned around without adding anything else.
“Natasha” Maria called her, making her turn after she already opened the door.
She sighed and added nothing else.
“I'll see you tonight” she said quietly, then left.
She went to a store. Picked out a green shade of paint she liked and went back home, she tore down the wallpaper and covered the furniture of the bigger room, then painted it all, just to keep her mind off of the fact that she screwed up her life, her marriage and everything else.
Maybe the idea of having a kid wasn't so crazy. It could be good.
She told Clint after they came back it was her last mission. Maria didn't even know anything about that, so it had to be. But she said that every single time for the past several months, so she knew he wouldn't believe her.
But it had to be. She couldn't lose Maria.
She couldn't live without her, she tried once, eight years before. It went terribly, she decided she would never do it again.
And having a child was something they had wanted for so long, together, it was a decision they talked about a lot before they sent those applications.
She didn't know if she was going to be some sort of decent mother, but she was determined to do her best.
It was less than ideal, that was undeniable.
But she was going to fix things.
They weren't just going to have a kid together, they were going to be a family.
She would make sure of it.
Maria stood in front of the door for five minutes before finding the nerves to go inside.
She shut the door, dropped her keys and bag on the nearby table and turned around, heading for the living room.
As expected, Natasha was there, reading a book. A book about parenthood, apparently.
“I painted the biggest one green. According to the file it's her favorite color.”
“I didn't call the social services, yet” Maria told her.
She turned, raising an eyebrow.
“I wasn't fair to you, today. The letter had just come in and I couldn't think logically.”
“They do say there's a first time for anything.”
“If you want to back down, you can” she continued. “I will give you the chance to say what you want to, before we take a decision about the divorce together. Just, not today. Probably not this week. Possibly not this month. But I will.”
She moved towards the kitchen, grabbed a glass and poured herself a glass of whiskey as Natasha caught up to her.
“You'll never forgive me if we miss this chance. We may never have another one.”
Maria laughed bitterly and drowned the whiskey.
“At this point, Natasha, I think it's pretty clear you could literally stab me in the back and I would ask you if you need me to lower myself a little so you could reach better.”
“Are you saying I'm short?”
“Very short.”
“Please” she scoffed. “I could stab you at any height.”
“Don't I know it.”
Natasha said it teasingly, kidding. Maria didn't.
She reached for her hand, but stopped herself midway.
“I'm not changing my mind. I want this child, too.”
Maria nodded, staring at the bottom of her glass.
“I'll call right away” she whispered, closing the bottle and putting it away. “You can't do this to her, Natasha” she told her, turning to look at her. “If you want to keep bailing on me, to keep going away on these” she shook her head. “What do you want me to call them again? Work trips? Glorified escapades? I don't know what you and Barton are up to, not because of a lack of effort in trying to find out, trust me. But you can't do this to a kid. She's not going to understand that if you leave and vanish from the face of Earth for two weeks or a month is for a good cause.”
“You know I can't promise there won't be an Avengers emergency” she pointed out.
“Then you go, but you call, you let her hear your voice everyday, even see your face if you can. This is not something you can do with one foot in and one foot out the door.”
“I will be here for her. I will be here for you” she promised. “I want us to be a family again, whatever it takes, as long as it takes me, I'll fix this.”
Maria sighed.
“I don't know if we can fix this. It's already crumbling down.”
“Because I moved?” Natasha whispered. “Because you built your life around me, that's what you're saying?”
“Because we built our lives around each other” Maria sighed again. “We're so closely intertwined that the tiniest of movements could echo until it shatters it all.”
Natasha took a daring step towards her and finally did the thing she had wanted to do since the moment she went back to New York, and took her wife's hand in her own.
“I'll stand perfectly still, if you will, too.”
Maria just looked at her for the longest of moments.
There was a sadness in those blue eyes that Natasha couldn't remember ever seeing before.
She slowly slipped her hand away, not otherwise responding.
“Maria” Natasha whispered solemnly, like it was a prayer.
“You kept going away and every time you came back you swore you wouldn't leave again. Then I'd come home one day, and you would be already gone. How is this any different, Nat?”
There was nothing she could retort. Maria was right. If she lost her trust in Natasha's words, it was because she kept breaking that promise, even if it wasn't on purpose.
“I'll prove to you it is. I will stay.”
Maria kept looking at her for a moment longer, then dropped her gaze.
“I'll call the social services, then I'll make some dinner, alright?”
They ate in silence. Both tired, drowned, hurt.
Natasha slept on her own couch, that night, but she never felt furthest away from home.
The social worker scheduled an appointment with them for Tuesday at five in the afternoon, they both made sure to be in Maria's office by then, she agreed to meet them there because the location of their private home was of course very secret.
When they filed the request another worker had assessed their home as fitted for kids and they had to go through a procedure they weren't looking forward to repeat to make sure he had no idea where it was located or how to get there.
Maria had been pacing the office for half an hour, when someone knocked on the door.
She immediately opened it, smiling and making a gesture for the social worker to come inside, then her eyes dropped on the girl she was leading by the hand.
She had light brown hair and big hazel eyes, her clothes were too big for her, and they looked as if they were second, maybe third hand.
“Hi, you must be Mackanzie” she greeted her. “I'm Maria.”
“And I'm Natasha” the redhead added, walking to be beside her wife, offering a smile of her own to the kid.
“Hi” she said shyly, with a blatantly fake smile. “I thought Miss Wyatt was kidding when she said you were both going to be women.”
“Mackanzie” the social worker, Amanda Wyatt, said in a warning tone. “So, we have the papers, I'm going to leave her with you, when we spoke on the phone you told me this is the time you usually get off work” she told Maria.
She nodded immediately. She didn't mention she usually did at least an hour of overtime before heading home, because she was going to change that at least for the nearest future.
“Yes, we'll be heading home right away.”
“Did I see you somewhere before?” the kid asked, looking at Natasha with a thoughtful expression on her face. “Are you a model or something?”
“Mackanzie, this is rude” Miss Wyatt reprimanded her.
“No, it's okay” Natasha told her with a gentle smile. “We'll talk as soon as we get home, okay Mackanzie?”
“I don't like to be called that. Just Mack is fine.”
“Alright then” Natasha nodded and kept smiling.
“Well, I have to get going” Miss Wyatt looked at her phone. “Good luck” she whispered in a way Maria didn't particularly like.
Mack rolled her eyes at that whisper, which made Maria all the more suspicious.
“I'll call you in a couple of days to check in” she said, then left.
Mack stood there awkwardly, putting her hands in the oversized jeans she was wearing.
An uneasy atmosphere settled in. She wasn't a baby, she was old enough that you could talk to her but not that old that either of them knew what kind of stuff she would like to talk about. So they just stood there awkwardly for a moment.
Maria cleared her voice. “So, how about we head home, too?”
Mack just shrugged.
That was not going to be easy, not that they ever thought it would, but now that they were in that situation, it was pretty clear it would take some time to adjust for all of them.
They drove home in Maria's car and the ride was still awkward and silent, but it wasn't hostile or excessively uncomfortable.
“Do you have other bags?” Natasha asked her as they got off the car and she grabbed her one small suitcase from the back, offering her a hand.
“No, but I also have this” she pointed to the backpack she was carrying herself.
Maria felt her heart sink.
“So, we prepared your room, but if there's something you don't like you can tell us and we'll change it right away, alright?” she said smiling and opening the door.
She made a skeptic face but said nothing and let Natasha guide her by the hand towards the aforementioned room.
As soon as the door was opened, she froze.
The room was pretty big, it had a twin bed, one big closet, a desk, a nightstand, and a bookshelf her height with four empty shelves.
“This is my room? Are you sure they didn't give you the wrong kid?”
Maria and Natasha looked at each other, taken aback. Maria chuckled.
“We're sure, Mack.”
“Do you like it?” Natasha asked.
“Do I like it? It's huge. And it's green!”
Maria smirked. “We knew it's your favorite color, so Natasha painted it that way.”
The kid looked up at Maria, then at Natasha.
“Do you want me to help you sort your clothes out?” Maria asked.
She shrugged and lowered her eyes.
“What if we leave it for now and the three of us can go make some dinner together?” Natasha proposed, squeezing a little the girl's hand. “Would that be okay?”
She shrugged again, but raised her eyes towards Natasha.
They went into the kitchen and Mack got up on one of the stools at the kitchen island, while Natasha took the other.
“What's your favorite food? Your file said fries, but that's not an entire meal so you name something else and I'll make anything you want” Maria said with a smile.
“Really? Anything?”
“Yeah, it's your first night here, we should celebrate.”
She snorted. “The people I go stay with usually celebrate when I leave.”
Maria's smile was gone in an instant. She didn't know what to say to that.
“I like pizza” Natasha said.
Mack brightened up a little. “We can have pizza?”
“I'll order fries, too” Maria said. “Just for tonight, because we're celebrating” she added. “I'll make you healthy meals from tomorrow on.”
She went to pick up her wallet, phone and keys.
“I'll be right back, okay? You two behave.”
Mack frowned, watching her leave.
“Don't adults usually just order pizza on the phone?” she asked.
“Adults usually do” Natasha confirmed. “But you saw how our house is pretty well hid from view and there are a lot of security systems here.”
She stared at her, deep in thought.
“So you are a model, then. Or an actress. And you don't want people to know where you live” she guessed.
Natasha smirked. “Don't adults usually ask the questions?”
Mack smiled back at her. “My teachers all say I'm too noisy” she said like she was proud of it.
“What's in your bag? Is it something you're not supposed to have?” she asked raising an eyebrow, showing she could be noisy as well.
Mack's smile vanished and she looked down, shrugging. She got down from the stool and headed for the room she left the suitcase in. Natasha quietly followed her.
Mack took it, laid it on the floor and opened it, then turned to Natasha.
She waited, but when Mack didn't say anything, she peeked inside.
“I guess sooner or later you would have seen it.”
Natasha knelt down, going through the half full suitcase. Inside she found two pair of jeans, five T-shirts and a couple sweaters.
“This won't do” she muttered. “This is too big, that one's worn out” she thought to herself.
“You two seem so nicely dressed and the house is so big” Mack told her. “Why didn't you get a better kid? Nobody wants me around, I usually get all the worst families since I broke the TV in house number two.”
“Oh, I hate our TV, the sound can't even be turned up anymore, but Maria won't change it, because it was a present. So, if you break it, you'll be doing me a favor, really” she smiled and gently laid an hand on the kid's shoulder.
Mack smiled at her.
“You have Harry Potter” she noted, picking it out of the suitcase. “This is the first, this is the third. Where are the others?”
“These two are the only ones I have. But I read two and four, a boy in one foster home let me borrow them.”
“Did you like them?”
“Yes, they're awesome. I like to read, I like adventures. But this is better” she said, picking out another book, a school book, from the bag. “It's physics and mechanics for kids. I like to take things apart and I like fixing stuff. But I'm having a bit of a hard time with the second part.”
Natasha kept herself from laughing.
“Sometimes to fix something you have to break it more, you know?” Mack explained. “But usually when they catch me they stop me from fixing them, so that's why Miss Daniels said I broke her TV, but I was just trying to make it work again.”
“I agree. To know what's wrong you have to take things apart and peek inside.”
Mack nodded.
“Can I put this on the shelf?” Natasha asked, nodding in the direction of the bookshelf.
“Sure. Can I put the clothes in the closet?”
Natasha chuckled. “It's your closet.”
Mack looked down and shrugged. “It usually isn't for long.”
Natasha watched her arrange her things. “This one will be, hopefully” she whispered.
They went back to the kitchen and she had Mack help her set the table. Maria returned with the pizza, still hot, and a lot of fries. They sat down and ate, while both of them asked Mack about what she liked to do, her birthday, everything they already read in the files. They weren't at all bored of hearing it all from her, on the contrary, it was nice and she brightened up thorough the meal, as she told them weird stories about the last school she was in.
Maria was the one who took her to brush her teeth and then bed, she asked her if she wanted a light, but she didn't, if she wanted her to read her something, but she just shook her head. She asked her if there was anything at all she needed, but again, she said no. So Maria just told her, if she thought of something, to go knock on their door or look for them in the living room if it wasn't that late.
When she went back to the kitchen Natasha had already washed the dishes.
“Do you want me to sleep in the guest room? I know I can't stay on the couch, Mack might get up and that would be a difficult conversation to have on her first night here” she said with a neutral tone she hadn't used all day, not turning away from the sink.
Maria sighed. “It's your home, too, Natasha” she repeated the words the other woman said the day before. “And it's your bed, too. We shared one for eight years, we can manage for a few more months” she whispered.
It was like a sharp knife had just made its way through her chest when she heard Maria say those words.
“Did you, I don't know, mark the day in a calendar or something? Do we have an expiration date like yogurt?” her words came out harsher than intended.
She felt Maria's hand in hers and turned a little to look at her.
“You know I didn't mean it like that. I said I'll give you the chance to explain and I will. Let's go to bed, Natasha” she told her almost softly.
Tired and hurt, Natasha said nothing and followed her lead.
Maybe, she hoped, maybe Mack was right. Maybe things, sometimes, had to be broken even further, before you could finally start to try to fix them again.