marvel oneshots

wandanat | its brighter now ( f )

summary - until you met your girls, you once believed love would be burning red, but it turns out, it's everything in between, and that couldn't be more golden. i wanna be defined by the things that i love, not the things i hate, not the things that i'm afraid of, not the things that haunt me in the middle of the night, i just think that you are what you love

word count - 3.1k

Like every relationship, yours has its ups and downs. Although most times, you're met with nothing but outstanding partners who try their absolute hardest to maintain open communication and boundaries, they're still human, and Avengers, and while some consider that a fairytale circumstance, not many stop to think about how challenging it can be at its worst moments. Not many people, or any at all who aren't in the lifestyle or one similar, think about how they're gone for days at a time, sometimes weeks or months if it's an undercover mission, and how when they finally do get back, they're never the same as how they left. But honestly, how could they be? They've done things no average citizen would ever be expected to do, seen things and handled situations that are dangerous and traumatizing, and just like anyone else, those things haunt them. Wanda is better about unpacking those skeletons in her closet then Natasha is, but the both of them take things personally, and if things go south, it's never good.

Both of your girlfriends had been gone from the compound for days. They'd been called out to an active Hydra base in Russia, and three days later, things had gone south and they'd been in active combat since. You didn't talk to them much, with battles and timezones and everything else that got in your way, but you had heard through the grapevine that Wanda was pretty banged up and Natasha had been left with no choice but to shoot to kill after a particularly gruesome fight. Hearing that never got any easier, especially when they were halfway across the world and had no idea when they'd return. It was missions like these that made you yearn for a simpler life. One where Wanda was an artist, Natasha probably took up something flexible like tattooing, and you did literally anything else to just have some peace and quiet and promised safety.

You had met Natasha first, after Maria recruited you to join Shield. She had been skeptical of you, as she was of everyone, but you broke down her walls as easily as you'd picked the lock to Clint's farm the one time you were placed on a strike mission together. She had been hurt pretty badly, and his farm was the closest place to land. That had been an interesting day, no thanks to your girlfriend who was draped across your arm with a shallow bullet wound and a startled Laura who was screeching about blood on her new couch. Things with Clint were still chaotic as ever, but he eventually got over you busting his brand new lock, and the two of you joked about it now, although now you had a key so no locks had to be busted in the event of an unplanned visit happening again. When you met Wanda, she fell into your dynamic easily, and at first, neither you nor Natasha had realized that you'd kind of adopted her as a third girlfriend until a drunken night when she ended up in your bed and never left. Now, sleeping without them is hard, but you're forced to manage as best as you can, seeing as you don't really have much of a choice.

It was going onto the sixth night without them home when you finally retired from the couch, and decided to head to bed, figuring that at two in the morning there was no chance of them coming back until the next morning at the earliest. It was hard enough when one of them was on an active mission with no return date, but when both of them were gone, it truly felt like your heart was missing from your chest and you were just going through the motions and holding your breath until they got back. Most people only had one person to worry about, but having two people to lose, with jobs in this line of work, you felt like you were always looking over your shoulder and expecting the worst. As often as they could, your girlfriends declined missions together, even though they felt comfortable on the battlefield together and it was a comfort to not be alone, but neither one of them wanted to risk not coming home to you. They didn't have a choice this time, so reluctantly they packed up their duffles and headed for the quinjet, with a kiss on your head and a promise that they would fight to come home to you, that they would try to make it back. There were still two mugs of tea on the countertop in the mini kitchen, and although it was disgusting and the tea had gone bad, you couldn't bring yourself to clean them up. If that was the last thing they ever touched with you, when they were just Wanda and Natasha and not Avengers, you wanted the picture of mismatched mugs burned into your eyelids for the rest of your life. They deserved to be remembered as real, genuine, soft and stubborn, sometimes infuriating but lovable and loved people, not just heroes who had a cause when things went south.