Russian Roulette (N.Romanoff)

Are We More Than Friends? [6]

"This is unbelievable." Sapphire murmured, her and Peter were now alone in her apartment. Liz and Ned had blown them off after all of that convincing they did for a party that one of Liz's popular friends was throwing. "Just relax, Saph this means we can hang out." Peter smiled weakly. He was a little upset about the missed outing but on the bright side...maybe it was just the right time for his friends to blow them off, because he wanted to tell Sapphire exactly how he'd been feeling since the day he first laid eyes on her.

The four words somehow carried so much meaning in them. You feel yourself about to utter them and then just like that...it gets hard to breathe and your head starts to hurt as your heart beats a thousand times per minute. Then anxiety kicks in and with it all of the panicky thoughts of "oh..." "well, I don't really feel that way just yet..." Peter had all but ran through every scenario in his head over and over again, and somehow it had gotten worse every time. But the feeling never changed. When he was around Sapphire he was so happy he could barely breathe, he was so happy his stomach fluttered and his heart pounded as his head grew cloudy. But in that sense...it was good, he'd rather feel that way forever than to not feel that way at all. Which was why he had made himself say it, because why keep it inside, it had been a year already, it was time to confess the truth. And if it didn't work out...well then he'd work it out from there.

Sapphire had started to rant a little more about the situation at hand. Something about how she was sick of being abandoned and that's when Peter tuned back in again. "Wait, what?" He asked. That's when he realized that Sapphire's eyes were now watery because she was crying, trying to hold it back. "Peter, I know this sounds so totally random and stupid but in my life... I was born into tragedy. My mother was taken from me when I was a baby... if it wasn't for me being incredibly smart then I don't know what would have happened, I wouldn't have remembered her at all. Would I have even cared about getting her back if I wasn't so smart, if I didn't remember her? It just keeps me awake at night sometimes and then... then I remember that I'm literally alone. I have all of these people around me and yet... I'm so alone that I just wanna die." Okay, so maybe it wasn't a good time to tell her how he felt... or maybe it was. 

"Sapphire, you are not alone. You have Natasha and the other Avengers who treat you like their the most important thing on this planet. You have me and Ned and Liz who suck at time management and being there when they say they will but nonetheless, they're here and then there's me, you'll always have me. Even if you don't get your mom back you have all those memories of her to hold onto." Sapphire smiled but Peter could tell it was a lie. Still, she snuggled into him and smiled a little harder, as if she were trying to convince herself that she was in fact, happy to be in his arm, which made Peter pull away. "My um... I forgot that my aunt needed me to take out the chicken from the freezer so I better do that before she gets home." Peter said, jolting up. Sapphire couldn't tell that anything was wrong so she shrugged and let Peter leave, regret in his wake. Sapphire then reached over to her phone and dialed the most recent number which was Natasha's.

"Hello?" Natasha asked from the other side. She let go of the phone and pressed it against her cheek with her shoulder as she used her right hand to open the big wooden doors to the Sanctum. "Hey Nat." Sapphire said as the happiness returned to her voice. "Did you um....did you find anything?" Sapphire asked. The nervousness navigated its way through the phone onto Natasha as she looked back at her fellow Avengers as they left the Sanctum. "No. Sorry Saph. Dr. Strange thinks he knows what's blocking her from coming back but he has some research to do." She lied. "Wait so she's alive, right? There's just something blocking her way from coming back?" Sapphire asked excitedly. Natasha pursed her lips and looked back at Sam as they all piled into Tony's car. "Um, yea kind of. Why so curious?" She asked. Sapphire kind of laughed. "What do you mean? She's my mom and I want her back I'm just curious." Natasha then shook her head and rephrased her question. "Right no, I meant to say that curiosity isn't what's going to bring her back, Saph." "Curiosity is exactly what's going to bring her back."