Risk

Thirty Six

AN Sorry I have not updated this since 2019...happy 2022 y'all. 😃 this one is longer than previous chapters.

Wanda grabbed her shoulders before she could enter the kitchen and living area where her mother and James were talking, stealing a moment alone with her. "I tried everything I could to put them off,"

"Oh I know you did, no one would want to witness this car crash." she groaned uneasily, then pouted. "I thought they would at least give me a chance to get him. I'm so fucked aren't I?"

"Um, hell yeah you are." Wanda told her matter of factly. "Also, don't think you're getting away with all this, once your parents are gone I want to know what went on in Hawaii!" She smirked.

Natasha groaned uneasily. "Nothing has changed, we still hate each other," she said sarcastically and Wanda snorted.

"Sure." She rolled her eyes as the front door opening and closing made them both jump.

"Gossip will have to wait, I have a date with death." Natasha took a deep breath, breezing over to her father before he could comment on the stranger sitting in his daughter's living room. "Papa," she greeted, swiftly giving him a hug as a distraction.

"Talia." He replied, his accent thicker than her mother's, pressing a kiss to her hair as his large hand patted her back gently. He was a tall man, strong beneath his suit and extremely serious. He said something to her in Russian, a flicker of expectancy in his eyes as she sighed and replied in her mother tongue. James eyes flickered between them, seeing it as her fathers test to her that she wasn't completely Americanised, he was obviously a man proud of his country.

Her mother rolled her eyes, much like Natasha would, and breezed over to her husband, nudging him in the arm. "Stop being intimidating, say hello to everyone." She scolded, and her father glanced around the room, smiling politely as he said hello to Wanda before his face fell as the sight of James.

James stood, offering his hand out to him. "I'm James Barnes." He flinched slightly at the tight grip of the handshake he received. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise," her father replied, almost mockingly.  "James Barnes? Are you a friend of Natasha's? "

Natasha opened her mouth to speak, fully committed to going along with this idea until her mother ruined it by scoffing softly.

"No, Darling. James isn't a friend. He's Natalia's boyfriend. Well, man friend."

"A man friend?" Her father's tone was instantly more stern as he eyed James up, but Wanda spoke up in an attempt to pull the focus away from him.

"So, tea everyone?"

"You are the man in a relationship with my daughter?" Her father asked, ignoring everyone else in the room. His sole and only focus was James, and he wasn't going to be distracted from that any time soon. "How old are you?"

"Twenty eight, Sir." He replied almost immediately, almost shocked at how easy his lie was, but even that seemed to make her father's eyebrows raise in surprise.

"So, anyway," Natasha tried to interject as she watched her father begin to look more unimpressed. She knew the questions wouldn't stop, and the uncomfortable atmosphere would last longer the more he clung onto it.

Before anyone else could say a word, the front door opened and the next guest invited himself on in, back first and carrying two pizza boxes with a bottle of wine balanced on top. They did so without reading the room to notice who was part of it at all, which was typical, really, from Clint Barton.

"Right, I've cleared my schedule for the day to be updated on your post-breakup, fuck men, vacation. If you aren't wearing a grass skirt and coconut bra then I know you didn't really enjoy Hawa- oh hi!" Clint, master of being an idiot, greeted the room unaware it was fully occupied. He jumped, very nearly squeaked the "hi" as his eyes moved from her mother, to her father and then to James before he caught the wine bottle in one hand and balanced the pizzas in the other.