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The quinjet was silent, save for the low thrum of engines and the frantic beeping of the medical monitor. Blood was everywhere, too much of it. Wanda’s hands shook as she pressed gauze tightly against Natasha’s abdomen.
“Stay with me, Nat. Please,” Wanda whispered, her voice cracked and hoarse from screaming. She didn’t realize she was crying until it dripped onto Natasha’s cheek.
Natasha didn’t answer. She hadn’t answered in almost five minutes. Wanda was counting every one of them like bullets speeding at them.
The mission had gone sideways. Hydra operatives weren’t supposed to have tech like that, experimental explosives that tore through steel like paper. Natasha had shoved a new agent out of the blast radius and taken the brunt of it herself.
Wanda had felt it. The echo of Natasha’s pain hit her through their bond like a dagger to the chest.
Now Natasha lay on the stretcher, barely breathing, her once-steady heartbeat flickering like a dying flame.
“ETA to medical bay?” Wanda barked out.
“Six minutes,” the autopilot responded.
“Not fast enough,” she hissed.
With trembling fingers, Wanda pushed hair back from her face and hovered a hand over Natasha’s chest. Her magic sparked, faint red glowing orbs gathering at her fingertips.
“I don’t know if this will work,” she whispered. “But you are not leaving me, Natasha Romanoff.”
She poured her energy into Natasha, not to heal the damage was too deep for that, but to stabilize. It was just enough to keep her tethered. Enough to give her time.
The next hours blurred into a haze of shouting, lights, blood, and too many words Wanda didn’t want to understand: internal bleeding , collapsed lung, chest tube .
Wanda stood behind the observation window, fingers pressed against the glass. She watched Natasha seize on the table, watched doctors fight like hell to drag her back.
And then silence again.
An hour passed. Then two. Then five.
They let Wanda in at hour six.
Natasha lay still, engulfed in wires and bandages, her skin the color of ash. Machines beeped and hissed. But she was alive. Barely.
Wanda sat beside her, took one of her hands into both of hers, pressing her forehead to it.
“I’m right here,” Wanda murmured, voice cracking. “You’re going to make it. You always do.”
She didn’t sleep. Didn’t eat. Only sat by Natasha's bed and whispered stories, memories, and confessions she’d never dared speak aloud.
“Remember when we went up to Clint’s house and we were all shooting arrows? I nearly shot Clint in the foot?” she asked with a teary laugh. “He was so mad he didn’t speak to me for hours. But still invited us in for dinner.”
Wanda’s eyes closed. Her thumb traced circles on Natasha’s hand. Was it to comfort herself or Natasha? She wasn’t entirely sure.
“I can’t do this without you,” she whispered. Emotion thickened in the witch's voice. “Please don’t make me.”
Natasha woke up three days later.
It was barely a flicker. An eye twitch, a slow blink. But Wanda was already leaning over her, sobbing in relief.
“Hey,” Natasha rasped, barely audible.
Wanda let out a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “You scared the hell out of me.”
“You... should’ve seen the other guy,” Natasha croaked, lips curling ever so slightly.
Wanda kissed Natasha's forehead, careful of the bruises. “I love you, моя любовь (my love).”
Natasha’s fingers twitched weakly in hers. “I love you too.”
The days blurred together in sterile white.
Natasha Romanoff had faced death more times than she could count, but healing, this kind of healing, was something else entirely. There was nothing glamorous about it. No glory. Just pain, humiliation, and frustration that burrowed itself inside her chest.
She hated the way her body betrayed her now. Hated the tremble in her hands when she tried to hold a spoon. The way every breath still burned. The jagged scar on her abdomen throbbed each time she moved.
Wanda never looked away. Not once.
Natasha tried to push her away, more than once.
“I’m not your charity case,” she muttered on the fourth day she was awake. Trying to sit up without assistance and nearly blacking out.
“No, you’re my girlfriend,” Wanda said gently, moving to steady her. “I’m here because I love you.”
“Then don’t look at me like this.” Her voice was ragged, exhausted, and defeated. “I’m not... me right now.”
Wanda reached her hand out, brushing a strand of red hair from Natasha’s forehead.
“Then I’ll stay until you are.”
Rehab started ten days later. It was hell.
Getting out of bed took five minutes. Taking a single step took ten. By the end of the first session, Natasha’s body was shaking and she could barely bite back the scream in her throat.
Wanda was there, silent and steady, holding a bottle of water, her hand steady on Natasha’s back when she collapsed back into the wheelchair.
“I’m pathetic,” Natasha spat, sweat dripping down her temple. “This is pathetic.”
“No,” Wanda said firmly. “It’s brave.”
“You call this brave?”
“I call staying alive when everything tells you not to be brave. I call fighting through pain every day to come back to me brave.”
Natasha didn’t answer. But that night, when she woke from a nightmare drenched in sweat, heart pounding, she didn’t push Wanda away. The witch climbed into the hospital bed beside her and held her until the shaking stopped.
Some nights were worse than others.
There were dreams, terrible ones. Of fire and blood, of the blast. Of Wanda screaming Natasha's name through the comms. Sometimes Natasha would wake up and forget where she was, clawing at the IV lines and panicking until Wanda gently pressed her back down.
“It’s okay, Nat,” she’d whisper, lips at her temple. “You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
One night, as rain tapped softly against the hospital windows, Natasha finally let herself cry.
She was sitting in the armchair, hunched over, hands clenched in her lap. Wanda had just returned from getting a smoothie and she stopped in the doorway when she saw her.
Natasha didn’t make a sound. Just shook, silent and breaking.
Wanda dropped the cup and rushed to her.
“Don’t,” Natasha croaked, voice cracking. “I’m not supposed to cry. I don’t cry.”
“You do now,” Wanda whispered, kneeling in front of her and wrapping her arms around her waist. “You don’t have to carry it alone anymore.”
Healing was not linear. Some days were better.
Others, Natasha would barely speak. She’d sit staring out the window, her mind a thousand miles away. Haunted by the weakness she couldn’t out-fight.
Wanda never left.
She’d bring books and read to her, just to fill the silence when she didn’t know what else to say. She painted Natasha’s nails one day, red of course, and smiled when Natasha looked pleased with them.
“You’re still my girl,” she said, holding her hand. “Even like this.”
“Especially like this,” Wanda added softly.
Six weeks after waking up, Natasha stood without help.
It was shaky. Painful. But hers.
Wanda cried when she saw it. Natasha quietly teased her for it, but the next second, she leaned into her, forehead to forehead.
“I didn’t think I’d get this far,” Natasha whispered. “But you never gave up on me.”
“I never will,” Wanda said. “You’re my girl.”
The thing no one tells you about being strong is that eventually, you run out of it.
Wanda Maximoff had been a fortress for six weeks. Steel and silence and calm, every breath a quiet prayer. She had smiled when Natasha needed her to. Sat still through every scream, every nightmare. Swallowed every fear like glass.
But even Wanda had limits.
The moment it happened, Natasha was asleep, peaceful for once, mouth slightly parted, her hand still wrapped around Wanda’s.
Wanda had meant to go home for the night, just for a shower and a real bed. But she’d lingered, sitting in the bedside chair with her bag half-zipped and untouched in her lap. The rain had started again, soft against the window like fingers tapping glass.
And then the dam broke open.
No warning.
No lead-up.
Just a single thought, “ What if she hadn’t made it?”
Wanda started to cry.
Silently, at first. Then harder. Gasping sobs she couldn’t control, burying her face in her hands as her body curled forward like something collapsing in on itself.
She hated herself for it. Hated the sound, hated the weakness, hated the wet ache in her chest. She hadn’t let herself do this. Not once.
She didn’t realize Natasha had woken up until she felt fingers, still weak, still shaking, curl around hers.
“Wanda?” Natasha’s voice was grave but soft.
Wanda flinched and wiped her face quickly, forcing a smile through the wreckage of her tears. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
But Natasha was already pushing herself upright with a wince. “C’mere.”
“I’m fine, Nat. You need rest.”
“ Come here, ” she said again, more firmly this time.
Wanda hesitated for half a second before climbing into the bed beside her, careful not to bump the healing scar on Natasha’s stomach. She curled up small, trying to hide her face, but Natasha’s arms came around her, tentative, slow, but sure.
“You’ve been holding this in,” Natasha murmured.
Wanda shook her head. “You were the one dying. I didn’t get to fall apart.”
“You do now,” Natasha whispered. “You’re allowed.”
And Wanda finally let it happen. She sobbed into Natasha’s shoulder, arms wrapped tightly around her middle, holding her like she could make up for all the days she almost didn’t get this chance.
“I couldn’t lose you,” she choked. “I can’t.”
“You didn’t,” Natasha whispered. “You won't.”
They stayed like that for a long time, two soldiers, two survivors. Breathing in sync, wrapped in quiet pain and quieter love.
Natasha’s recovery continued. Slowly, steadily.
But something had shifted between them—not broken, not strained, but deepened . Wanda let herself be human now, let Natasha see the cracks. And Natasha, who had always carried strength like armor, began to let Wanda carry her too.
Sometimes, that meant Wanda helping her shower, neither speaking, both hearts heavy with how fragile recovery could be.
Sometimes, that meant Natasha waking to find Wanda asleep beside her, arms still around her waist, the worry still etched into her brow even in sleep.
And sometimes, it meant nothing but sitting together, their fingers laced, as the sun rose outside and the world dared them to hope again.
Two months post-injury, Natasha took her first steps outside.
Wanda was beside her, coat around her shoulders, hand hovering like she was ready to catch her at the first stumble.
Natasha didn’t stumble.
She stood in the breeze, eyes closed, face tilted toward the sky like she’d forgotten what air tasted like.
“I missed this.” she said softly.
Wanda smiled. “I missed you .”
Natasha opened her eyes and turned to her, voice quiet. “You saved me.”
“I was just here.”
“You were everything .”
That night, Wanda kissed her like it was the first time all over again.
No fear. No blood. Just two hearts remembering they’d never stopped beating for each other.
It was three months and twelve days after the explosion when Natasha stood in the training room again.
It was empty. Late. Quiet.
She stood in front of the mirror, watching her own reflection like it belonged to someone else. Her frame was leaner now—still muscular, but thinner, the healing process having cost her in more ways than one. The scar at her side was visible even beneath the tank top. It ran from just under her ribs to her hip. Ugly. Deep.
Permanent.
She reached up and tied her hair back slowly, carefully. The stretch of it still tugged at the sensitive skin of her injured abdomen.
Her body remembered everything: how to breathe, how to move, how to fall into stance. But something in her eyes had changed.
Not weaker. Just... quieter.
Wanda appeared behind her in the mirror.
“Thought I’d find you here,” she said softly.
Natasha offered a half-smile. “Can’t sleep.”
“Muscle memory haunting you again?”
Natasha nodded. “Feels weird not to be fighting.”
“You have nothing to prove anymore.”
“That’s the problem,” Natasha said. “I don’t know who I am when I’m not bleeding.”
Wanda stepped up behind her and slid her arms around her waist, careful of the scar but unafraid of the damage.
“You’re mine,” she said simply. “That can be enough.”
Natasha closed her eyes and leaned back into her.
“Do you ever wonder,” she asked, “what it’d be like if we stopped running? Stopped surviving and just... lived?”
Wanda smiled against her shoulder. “All the time.”
Two weeks later, Natasha submitted her resignation.
Not permanent, not final. But indefinite. A long pause in a life full of chaos.
Fury didn’t argue. He just gave her a long look, then nodded once and said, “You earned it.”
And so, for the first time in years, Natasha Romanoff disappeared, but not into a mission.
She and Wanda left the city. Found a cottage with a porch and wildflowers out back. A crooked little garden Wanda called hers even though Natasha did all the weeding.
There was no schedule. No mission logs. No briefings.
Just them.
It was Wanda who found the old record player in the attic, dusty and half-broken.
It was Natasha who fixed it, fingers steady enough to rewire the motor.
Their first night using it, they danced barefoot in the kitchen, arms wrapped around each other, laughter soft as the record scratched out old jazz.
“You look like you belong here,” Wanda whispered, forehead against hers.
“Maybe I do,” Natasha said.
And at that moment, she believed it.
Some nights, the pain came back in phantom aches, bad dreams, and memories that dug in deep.
And some mornings, Natasha would wake and just watch Wanda sleep beside her, like she still couldn’t believe she was allowed to have this. To keep this.
They didn’t talk about forever. They didn’t have to.
They were living it.
One afternoon, long after the worst of it had passed, Wanda found Natasha sitting on the porch with a sketchpad in her lap.
“You’re drawing?” Wanda asked, surprised.
Natasha shrugged. “I had time. You looked beautiful in the sun yesterday.”
Wanda blinked. “You drew me?”
Natasha turned the sketchpad around.
It was rough, unfinished, but there she was: Wanda, curled up on the grass, sun in her hair, head tilted back in a laugh.
“You never stop surprising me,” Wanda said.
“I think I’m just figuring out who I really am,” Natasha replied.
She reached for Wanda’s hand.
“And I like her better with you in the picture.”