Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s the first night in weeks that Maria has been able to spend out of her office, and the first night in days that she hasn’t had to sleep there. It doesn’t stop her from working, even if she’s in the comfort of her own quarters, but Natasha had decided enough was enough, and working on her sofa is better than nothing. Maria is thankful, truly. Coulson and Fury have their threats, but Natasha is the only one willing to lay a hand on her to drag her out physically when it comes down to it. She’s the only one willing to argue and plant her feet when Maria tries to be stubborn. She loves her for it. As much as she thinks she shouldn’t.

This time, Maria hadn’t put up much of a fight at all. Natasha had looked at her with such an earnest expression, and if she was honest to herself she was already exhausted. Work has been hard, and the tension in her shoulders has never been tighter. She doesn’t remember the last time she didn’t have a headache, and something about the promise of company, the chance to change into something soft and comfortable, had her resolve crumbling like the very plans she’s been trying to save.

Now, she’s folded up on one side of the sofa, and Natasha is sitting on the other caring for her blades. It’s been back to normal for a while now, and Maria can only say she’s horribly thankful for it. There had been a week or two, back there, where they had barely spoken. Maria could barely bring herself to look at her for shame, for the whisper of bruises she’s certain she had to cover, and Natasha didn’t seem to want to start a conversation anyway. She couldn’t read her, and even in the short times they did spend together, Natasha would seem to hide herself like she didn’t want Maria to see her. Sometimes, she’d find her staring, only for her to turn away the moment she noticed, and Maria was so scared that she’d ruined it all. She doesn’t know what it is between them. They’ve never talked about it and she thinks they never will. She certainly doesn’t have the balls to. It didn’t matter what it was, Maria only knew that she’d scared her away and that she’d never have it back.

The day that Natasha finally appeared in her quarters, just as silent but tentatively close, Maria thinks she could’ve cried.

They’ve still never spoken about that one night in particular – they still haven’t even spoken about what any of their actions mean – but she can look at her again now. The pit in her stomach still likes to make itself known, but it’s manageable. She can swallow it down like every other feeling she’s ever had. Natasha acts as if nothing ever happened, and she even watches Maria clean her guns again every now and then. It’s much less often, and Maria never catches the same expression anymore, but it feels familiar nonetheless. Sometimes she thinks it’s selfish that she likes it when Natasha watches, when she knows the sadder truth of it, but it’s proof that she hasn’t scared her away completely. Sometimes, she thinks she looks calmer when she watches, like maybe there truly is an innocent joy to it and she tries to hold onto it.

She finds herself distracted from her own work now, despite its importance. She really does try, but it’s hard to focus on the hundredth email of the day when Natasha’s hands are so sure just over the top of her screen. She drags her eyes back to the documents she’s supposed to be looking over and tries not to simply listen instead. Maybe she can see the appeal in watching someone work.

Natasha isn’t exactly known for her knives. If anything, they’re a well kept secret; something people don’t see until it is far, far too late. But Maria likes them on her. Sometimes she feels a little bit like she’s being let in on a secret when Natasha brandishes them so openly around her. She knows where she keeps each individual one on her person and she knows the names she has for each of them that she’d never admit to anyone else. She takes immaculate care of them, and Maria has had to pout sympathetically around a smile on more than one occasion, where an edge has been chipped and Natasha has been more annoyed about having to buff it out than the injuries in her own skin. There’s something sweet about how much she cares for something so dangerous, and maybe something a little less sweet about watching her.

It really is strangely satisfying to watch her clean and sharpen each one. She keeps the edges so even and sharp that it almost becomes an art, and Maria can definitely see the appeal in watching her hands work. The delicate way she holds them that gives way to a certain sense of surety. She’s never seen her cut herself once, despite the way she’ll flip them around for the simple pleasure of it. She’s almost cocky at times, and Maria would be lying if she said her confidence didn’t do something to her.

She watches her test one that she knows is her favourite by thumbing the edge of it. It makes a soft sound that is only audible in the silence they let hang between them. It’s comfortable now, nothing like the charged stillness before, and Natasha hums quietly to herself, clearly satisfied with her work.

“What is it about that one?” Maria asks on a whim. Her keyboard is quiet where she continues to type, albeit slowly. She wishes she could leave it alone, pack up and enjoy the presence of a real human being for once, but her sense of duty has always been her undoing.

Natasha turns to her as if questions were the last thing she was expecting. She smiles anyway, knife still in her hand. “What do you mean?”

Maria glances briefly over the top of her laptop as if she hasn’t been watching her for the last ten minutes. “Why is that one your favourite?”

“You don’t have a favourite gun?” She raises an eyebrow.

“Of course I do. I want to know your reasons.”

Natasha hums, moving it around in her hands like she’s never seen it before. “She’s never led me wrong. And she seems to get sharper than the others. Everyone likes bowies, but I’ve always been a wharncliffe girl.” She shrugs. “I’d use more hawkbills if they weren’t such a pain in the ass to sharpen. Some dickbag snapped mine last time.”

Maria watches her scowl at the wharncliffe in her hand if it had been a personal attack. The hawkbill had been replaced immediately, but Natasha keeps her edges even finer than the ones in the armoury and Maria had listened to her grumble about it the whole time as she honed it to her liking.

She doesn’t look up from her screen, though her lips quirk ever so slightly. “Maybe you shouldn’t have let him catch it.”

Natasha turns to her with fond exasperation, hiding a smile of her own as she sighs. “Why are you so interested all of a sudden?”

“I’ve always been interested.”

“For work purposes.”

“I’ve asked you questions for personal reasons plenty of times.”

She almost squints, and a smile still plays at her lips. “Okay, why are you so interested tonight?”

“You and your knives are much more interesting than the reports I’ve been filling. Dare I say I enjoy listening to you talk about something you like over running the numbers on how many agents I’ve lost in the last week alone.” Natasha stares at her for a long moment, and Maria sighs very tightly. She presses her thumb and forefinger up under her eyebrows. “I’m sorry.”

“No. No, it’s okay. I should’ve guessed. I had to practically drag you here.”

Maria doesn’t comment on the actuality of how easy it was to remove her from that office. “And I appreciate it, Nat. You know I do. Everything’s just been–”

“Stressful. I know. And I keep offering to help and you keep shooting me down.” Her expression is so earnest again, and Maria never knows what to do with it. She isn’t built for this. People don’t look at her like that unless they want something.

“I know. Look– I–” She isn’t letting her help because she hasn’t figured it all out yet. She’s taking risks to find the calculations, not the other way around, and Natasha isn’t about to be part of the statistics. “I’ll be fine. It’ll all blow over and it’ll be back to how it was minus however much blood is on my hands by the end of it. It’s how it always is.” I don’t want yours spilt too.

Again, Natasha only stares at her. Her eyes dart around her face like she’s looking for a clue, flitting between her eyes like Maria might soften if she looks long enough. Her mouth presses into a thin line that Maria has never liked to see. “Okay,” is all she says, both of them far too deeply aware of the nature of their lives.

She turns back to the coffee table in front of them, the rest of her knives yet to be sharpened and still laid out. Maria can’t quite bring herself to focus on her work again.

“Talk about your knives.”

“What?”

“Tell me about them. Pros and cons. I don’t care what.”

“Why?”

“I just told you why.”

Natasha almost hesitates, with another curious glance at Maria. Maria holds her gaze distinctly on her screen as if she can focus on it at all anymore. It doesn’t take long for Natasha to give in and pick up the next blade in her rotation. She doesn’t look at Maria as she starts to work again, almost as if she’s talking to the knives themselves, and Maria is strangely thankful for the sense of privacy it gives her when she inevitably finds herself watching again.

Maria listens quite happily to an in depth explanation of Natasha’s perceived faults in the bowies and drop points as she sharpens one of her own. She has almost a full set of the common blade types and Maria thinks she could probably rank her favourites for her even before this explanation. It’s nice to hear her talk about something she has so much experience with, and most importantly, it’s distracting. She could almost forget about the tragedy that has been the last few weeks if she simply focuses on Natasha’s gentle voice in front of her and the rough sound of a whetstone.

“Wharncliffes are just easier to sharpen without a curve to the blade,” she explains, another three knives down the line. “The point is nicer too. It doesn’t slip as easily when you’re working in close quarters.”

Maria hums. She hasn’t written anything in a long time, but her shoulders feel a little less like ropes at tension point. “Like the hawkbills.”

“Exactly.” Natasha grins to herself. “They’re work, but they’re worth it for the edge. Once they’re hooked onto something, they’re not coming loose unless they’re coming through.” She tilts her head ever so slightly. “And they can be so precise. I really don’t know why more people don’t use them.”

“Because they don’t sharpen their knives so obsessively.”

Natasha almost scowls. “They should. A knife has one job.”

Maria’s laugh is very quiet in the room, barely hidden into a little huff of a breath, but Natasha looks at her anyway, and eyebrow pitched ever so slightly. Maria is certain her expression is probably far too fond when she glances back. Instead of outing herself, which she is sure she does every time Natasha even looks her way, she turns back to her work once again. She really should be focusing. She really, really should, with the week that it’s been – with the whole month, really. But she’s tired, and Natasha is soft. And she really thought she fucked it up back there, but she didn’t. Somehow. She didn’t because Natasha is sitting here beside her talking about her knives just to try and keep her company, and its the first time her chest hasn’t felt like some open pit inside of her in days.

“Can you really feel the difference?”

Natasha’s eyes don’t leave her. “You’re just insulting me now.”

“I’m asking,” she maintains. “We have a high standard already. There must be a point where they stop getting sharper.”

“I’m not going all the way to the armoury to get one of your shitty knives.”

“They’re not shitty.”

“Sure,” She says with one of those terribly handsome tilts of her head before she turns back to the table. “I’ve got one of mine I haven’t done yet. It’s probably the same difference.”

Maria hums, curious despite the way she continues to evade her. “You haven’t sharpened them since you got back?”

“I’ve been busy,” Natasha says, almost defensive. “Find me some paper.” Maria presents her hand without looking away from her screen, and Natasha stares at her palm for a long moment before turning back to her face. “What’s that for?”

“I don’t have any paper,” she lies.

Natasha scowls. “You always have paper.”

“I’m comfortable.”

“Maria, I’m not using your hand as a test dummy.”

“I’ve trusted you with worse.”

Natasha’s lips press themselves very thin again and Maria continues not to look at her, her hand still out between them. There’s an odd depth to her attention again, like she’s trying to work Maria out from the inside. She isn’t overly fond of the way it feels like she might genuinely be able to see straight into her. Natasha has looked at her like this more times than Maria can count when she knows she’s being difficult. But this feels distinct in a way she can’t place. She feels like she’s being picked apart, fingers plucking at strings she herself has never been unable to untangle. It was like this last time, too. She’s never quite sure if she should let her keep trying. She’s a little bit scared of what she might find.

She lets her stare for a long time anyway, hoping that Natasha will come to her own conclusion instead of forcing her to speak. She isn’t totally sure this is a good idea in the first place. It would probably be very smart for Natasha to refuse, but some strange part of her still thinks it would be interesting to feel her press the cold edge of a knife to her fingertips, and her hands remains between them. She’s sure she wouldn’t cut her. Maybe that’s the appeal. Who else gets to be so close to such precision?

It comes as a genuine surprise when Natasha turns to pick up her last knife. “You sure? It’s a pretty cool trick.”

“I said I wanted to feel the difference, not see it.”

Natasha smiles in that sweet, exasperated way that is often reserved for Clint, and Maria feels some odd sense of satisfaction in her chest. “If you twitch and I sever a tendon, I’m blaming you.”

“I won’t,” she says, eyes flickering back to her face for the briefest of moments.

It seems to be confirmation enough for Natasha and she shifts in her seat to face her properly. Her knees press up against Maria’s leg where she crosses them, and it isn’t particularly comfortable, but Maria holds as still as she can in some strange attempt to keep Natasha right where she is. They touch each other plenty — or as much as ‘plenty’ can mean with their pasts. If anything, Maria thinks Natasha is far touchier than she has any right to experience. She doesn’t know why it still strikes her so often, in such insubstantial ways. Natasha will almost certainly stay the night, in Maria’s own bed, and she still won’t know what it means to Natasha as she curls herself up beside her, but she will know that it means the simple press of a knee should not mean as much to her as it does. If only she had the courage to reach out in turn. If only it didn’t make her feel more selfish than ever.

She tries not to dwell on it as Natasha’s hand comes up to cradle her wrist — which, if she does dwell on it, is much worse than a knee — and tries to type out something that might be misconstrued as work. She’s only got one hand to use in the first place and she taps out the letters in a distracted way that is most certainly too slow. She can’t watch her do it. She doesn’t quite know why. It just all feels a little too much. It’s all been her own idea and it already feels like too much. Natasha is barely touching her.

“You can’t work while I’m doing this,” she says, still holding her, the last knife in the other hand.

“Why not?” Maria replies, as perfectly unaffected as she can manage. She types another slow word.

“You’re moving, and you’re not paying attention.”

She wishes she could be paying less attention, if she’s honest. But she places her laptop on the coffee table in front of them like a dog on a leash and bites her own anxiety into the smallest sigh she can manage before she turns back to Natasha. “Okay,” she says, pretending that she feels anywhere near comfortable as she settles back into the couch. “I’m paying attention now.”

Natasha flashes her a smile that shouldn’t make Maria’s stomach feel the way it does when she’s offering her hand up like this. “Good. This is the blunt one.”

Her hand slides along Maria’s skin until she can hold her fingers still and Maria doesn’t think she breathes as she brings the knife over. She scrapes it very gently along the pad of her middle finger, perpendicular to the edge so that she can feel the fine line of it. Maria thinks that it feels perfectly sharp to her, and she tries to focus on the standards of the equipment she hands out rather than the weird, fluttery sensation that the gentle rasp sends along her forearm.

“Blunt isn’t the word I’d use,” she says to earn her the barest squint of Natasha’s eyes.

She watches as it’s placed back down on the table and swapped for the wharncliffe, and Natasha repeats the motion again. Somehow, the difference is noticeable, even through the odd static that it repeats too, like her tendons have been replaced with guitar strings for Natasha to strum. She hums lightly, and Natasha looks up at her.

“Don’t lie.”

“Why would I?”

“You look like you’re going to.”

“I’m not.”

“So you agree.”

“Yours is definitely sharper.”

It puts a smile on Natasha’s face like she’s proud of herself, like she ever thought that Maria would think she wasn’t telling the truth. “Feel the points,” she says, something bright about it, like a child at show and tell.

She selects a bowie from the line that has already been sharpened and settles herself back around to rest the very tip against Maria’s finger again. It’s sharp like every other knife, but Maria hums like she’s thinking anyway. The wharncliffe is brought back and pressed to the same place, and Maria hums again.

“What about the hawkbill?” she asks, pretending that the thickness in her throat isn’t there.

It almost makes Natasha grin, and her fingers slip under her hand slightly as she twists to retrieve it. Maria sits very still in her seat as Natasha slides her hand back to where it’s supposed to be. She holds her so tenderly as she presses her weapons to her skin, so careful not to damage her.

The hawkbill is noticeably pointed. Even when it doesn’t break the skin, it feels like it wants to, like it’s trying to hook in and hold onto something. Maria doesn’t breathe until Natasha removes it.

“I can see why you like that one.”

Natasha hums and Maria feels a little better for the fact that she is clearly enjoying this, even as she continues to hide her own affections. She thinks they’re probably enjoying it in very different ways. It has her mind wandering back to the last time there was a weapon between them. Maybe Natasha would understand, or maybe she scared herself as much as Maria did. Maybe experiencing it was what she needed to put her off of the thought, to reinstate some self preservation in the face of Maria’s self restraint. She thinks this is different, when Natasha is the one with the threat in her hands. It’s different when Maria isn’t the one in charge of yet another person’s life. It doesn’t make her skin crawl as her heart beats. It still doesn’t make it a smart idea, either.

“Show me again,” she says before she can tell herself better.

There is a split moment where she thinks that Natasha is going to question her. Just the barest flicker of her expression where she meets Maria’s eyes. But she sets her hawkbill down on her thigh and picks up the wharncliffe again and Maria doesn’t think she’s ever paid so much attention to someone’s hands unless they might actually be about to kill her. Natasha could, here, quite easily, and the thought isn’t as scary as it should be.

This time, hand her slides a little further to fit her palm neatly under the back of Maria’s hand, her fingertips along the back of her wrist. It makes Maria feel jittery again, like something under her skin as she’s held so tenderly. Natasha holds her like she’s scared of breaking her and Maria is terrified by the idea that she wants her to. It’s all too gentle, all too much like she isn’t there at all.

She watches her place the tip at the bottom of her palm, just near the end of her life line. She thinks it’s almost ironic as she feels the cold point of it. She must be one of very few people that get to feel the bite of these knives and walk away from it with her life intact. And then Natasha drags it towards her, just the whisper of pressure behind it. It leaves a faint line in its wake, lit up red like a beacon as Maria suppresses a shiver at the sensation. It’s almost ticklish, an edge to it that sinks right to her spine.

It almost looks like Natasha is having fun, a small smile across her face as she draws it all the way to the end of her middle finger. She looks up once she’s finished, and Maria swallows before she can bring herself to meet her eyes. She suddenly feels far too transparent, and she glances back down at the thin line before Natasha can decipher anything too telling from the darkness of her pupils.

“It shouldn’t hurt,” Natasha says, as if Maria is worried. “It didn’t cut anything.”

Maria swallows again and hopes Natasha doesn’t notice. “No. It’s fine.” She runs her thumb along the line, and Natasha is right. The sensation lingers like a ghost, but the trail is painless itself. “Show me the other.”

Another little smile, if even Maria can’t see it. She knows it’s there somehow, as Natasha picks up the hawkbill again. She can see it in the whole of her. She’s spent so long looking at her, picking out the minute tells. She wonders how she still manages to be so elusive in the ways that seem to matter the most.

None of it matters at all when she presses the tip of the hawkbill to the same place at the bottom of her hand. It catches on the creases of her palm, noticeably sharp as Natasha draws it across her skin in the same overly careful way. It leaves a second line, just to the side, a little darker in the places where it tries to dig in. Maria doesn’t think she breathes, some itching part of her wishing it’d bite. She can’t place why. She just wants to see the way her blood would well up. Some strange proof that she is even alive as she sits here. She feels it, she thinks, as Natasha sits here too. Sometimes, when Natasha isn’t here to prove it, she forgets that she’s even a person at all.

The knife trails the whole way along to her finger again, double lines, and it never cuts her once. It reaches the crease of her fingertip, a centimetre further, and she doesn’t truly even form the thought in her head before she presses up against it.

It doesn’t take much. The edge is so perfectly sharp in the exact way that Natasha had been trying to show her that the curve sinks easily into the pad of her finger. She doesn’t even flinch, a careful, shuddering breath in as Natasha gasps instead. She removes it immediately, dropped haphazardly to her own thigh as she brings Maria’s hand closer to her face to inspect it. Blood wells up in a little bead, stark and red against her skin, and Maria has the strange vision of it across Natasha’s lips.

“I told you to stay still,” Natasha says as she continues to stare at it.

It could have been a twitch. She could blame it on the ticklish sensation of having something drawn across her palm and never have Natasha think about it further. “I’m sorry,” is all she says instead.

And she is. She shouldn’t be doing this. It’d taken them weeks to get back to where they are after the last time. She doesn’t want to scare her again.

Natasha turns her finger slightly, one way then the other. The blood is glossy in the light. “It doesn’t look too deep. Do you have a tissue or something?”

Maria looks around a little dumbly. There isn’t really anything where they’re sat. “It’s fine. It’ll stop soon.”

“You’re going to stain something.”

“It’s fine.”

Natasha looks at her in a way that Maria can’t quite place. Her hand is still held in hers between them, her finger starting to pulse. She still doesn’t know why she did it. She doesn’t know why her chest still aches. It’s stupid. It’s dangerous.

She still struggles to look at her properly, her gaze set on the knife still balanced on her thigh. Natasha continues to stare at her, impassable. Her finger still pulses.

The warm slide of her blood as it finally spills over the edge of her finger draws her attention back in the snap moment before Natasha’s mouth is around it, and suddenly Maria can only stare, breath caught in her chest. Her tongue is hot, soft where it draws over her skin as Natasha removes herself a moment later. None of Maria’s blood stains her lips, and she can’t quite place why she’s disappointed.

She looks up at her, hand still clutched in her own, and Maria is sure her own eyes are much too wide, her face too slack, but she can’t manage to pull herself together. Something squirms inside of her, living and heavy, and it’s all she can do to remember to breathe.

“It was going to drip,” Natasha explains, as if Maria couldn’t make that out for herself. “I thought— Your couch.”

She looks at Maria in that curious way again, and it sets that feeling in her stomach, up through her chest. “Thanks,” she almost chokes out.

Natasha’s eyes drop back to her finger, fresh blood ever so slightly watered down as it comes, pink at the edges. “You’re bleeding a lot. Are you sure you don’t want to get the first aid kit?” Her tongue traces the very corner of her lip and Maria’s eyes follow it like a lure.

“It’s my fault.”

“Is it?” Her eyes are almost dark when Maria brings herself to meet them again. There’s something in the set of her mouth that she can’t quite place.

She can’t tear herself away. Natasha is still holding her hand. “Yes.” Her words are dry in her mouth, and no further excuse finds its way to her tongue.

Another indecipherable emotion flickers behind Natasha’s expression. This feels dangerous. It feels like standing at the edge of a tall, tall building. “Do you want to feel another?”

“Yes,” she breathes.

She’s certain of the way that Natasha’s lips quirk as she picks up another, and it isn’t lost on Maria that she selects one sharpened to her liking. She watches her hands just like every other time as she settles it against her palm, Natasha’s grip a little firmer around her hand. She guesses it’s to keep her still but she revels in it anyway.

The point stays exactly where it is, resting feather light just above her wrist. She thinks if she looks hard enough she can see the way her pulse races below it. She hopes Natasha doesn’t notice just how much this is affecting her. It was supposed to be innocent. A distraction from her work.

But Natasha isn’t looking at her hand. Her eyes burrow into her until Maria’s attention is forced back to her and the vastness of her pupils. She almost forgets about her hand between them, the blade still pressed to it. She’s only ever seen them so wide once, and her stomach somersaults for the implication — the memory.

It’s absurd. It took them weeks to recover. She’s grasping onto what they have with both hands for fear of ruining it again but— maybe that’s it. Maybe she holds too tight. Maybe she’s built to break. And maybe she wants to be broken.

“Do you trust me?” Natasha says between them, so, so quiet. Maria almost thinks she imagines it.

Her stomach turns itself again, and suddenly she can’t tell herself that this isn’t like last time at all. She can’t tell herself she doesn’t want it to be just like last time, their roles reversed. Natasha looks just as open as she did before, and Maria’s heart aches for it. She thinks it wouldn’t be hard to fall into her and lose herself completely. Burn up in the desperation of it all and find nothing left of herself in the morning.

The blade presses at her palm, never quite enough to bite. “Yes,” she says, just as quiet. Like she might break something.

Natasha doesn’t smile, her expression doesn’t change at all. She stares at Maria like she’s looking into her, and Maria thinks she’d let her open her up completely if she asked for it now. She’d let her take her apart on this couch, stain it red until she could never remember the colour it was supposed to be as Natasha searches for whatever she wants to find. She’d let her hold her in her hands, parts of her that she’s never seen herself. May she can dig the rot out from the inside. Maybe she can pick apart the tangle of her insides until she is someone good and whole.

She doesn’t look away, and Maria can only stare back as the knife makes its way along her palm in that same delicately ticklish way. It’s almost disappointing, if Maria can find the space for it around the way Natasha holds her captive. She wonders if she’s gotten it all wrong. If she really can’t read Natasha as well as she thinks she can. The point trails along her ring finger instead, and Maria holds her hand as perfectly still as she can manage around the tremble in her bones.

And then, right as it reaches the last notch of her finger, Natasha presses up against the back of her hand. She barely feels the pressure before it pinches, hot along the invisible lines of her. The sigh is past her lips before she can swallow it, bitten off small.

It reflects itself some way in Natasha’s expression, still just beyond Maria’s grasp. Her attention doesn’t slip from Maria’s for even a moment, even as she balances the blade on her thigh again. Maria wants to look, wants to see the evidence of her mortality smudged along the edge of Natasha’s pride and joy, but she can’t bring herself to tear herself away.

“Maria,” Natasha says very carefully. It edges into concern, something like pity in the corners of her voice, and it sours in Maria’s stomach. Natasha’s eyes are so dark.

“Don’t,” she says softly. The word sounds ashamed of itself and Maria tries not to shrink into the space between the couch’s arm and the cushion. Her attention flickers around Natasha’s face instead, still unable to look away entirely. “It’s fine, just— Don’t think about it. It’s fine. Keep going.”

She bites down on her tongue so hard that it aches in a last desperate attempt to stop the words that tumble over. I like it, she wants to say, but it feels like too much. It feels like something she can’t come back from. She tastes iron and thinks that bleeding isn’t the same without Natasha behind it.

Natasha looks at her in a calculating way that Maria doesn’t like. She wishes she understood what this all meant. She wishes she could read between the lines of Natasha’s mixed signals. Warm and then distant. Her pupils wide as she stares at her with something like hesitancy. It isn’t fair, Maria thinks briefly. But she isn’t being fair either. She shouldn’t be asking this of her. Not after last time. Not after everything she knows of her.

“You need your hands,” Natasha says eventually, and Maria wonders why she hasn’t let go of her already.

“They’ll heal.”

Her own expression must be terribly betraying, a pinched and horrible picture. She thinks Natasha can probably read right down to every thought she’s having, and she can barely bring herself to care anymore. She’s already shown more than she should have. She’s already laid herself bare against any sort of better judgement she thought she was in possession of. But Natasha is still holding her hand. Her knees are still pressed uncomfortably against her. Hope is a terrible thing.

Maria’s ring finger bleeds more than the first, the cut deeper, longer. It pulses harder, a constant in her periphery as she begs Natasha with all but her words. A pearl of red between them where Natasha continues to cradle her hand like maybe she doesn’t want to let go. Neither of them have looked directly at it since Natasha put it there. Neither of them have thought to stop the bleeding until it is too late.

Maria’s gaze is dragged down with it, the slide of blood ticklish along the side of her finger. It slips into Natasha’s hand, pooling in the space where her palm meets Maria’s knuckles. Natasha watches it too, her attention rapt.

It seems certain to Maria that Natasha is going to leave. Her blood on her skin is surely the last straw in all of this, and she thinks she could almost collapse when Natasha releases her. Finally, at least, she can hide herself away and pretend it all never happened. She can start making plans of forgiveness and how to get Natasha back again.

But Natasha doesn’t leave. Her hands barely break from Maria’s at all as she twists it, her touch even more tender. Maria lets her move her, lets her bring her fingers close until Natasha’s tongue is wide and soft against her fingers. She watches her like a dog on a leash as she draws it along the length of them, up over the fresh cuts. It stings just a little bit and she breathes hard through her nose. Natasha’s lips close over the end of her middle two finger tips, everything hot and soft and Maria’s stomach squirming again until she bites. Her teeth sink into them, a harsh line across broken skin, and Maria’s eyes slide closed before she can embarrass herself further with the sight. She’s sure Natasha still catches the waver in her breath.

Natasha soothes her tongue over them one last time before she releases them, thumbs still pressed to the bottom of Maria’s palm. “They’re going to hurt tomorrow,” she says softly, liking she’s giving Maria one last out.

“I know,” Maria replies.

“They’re going to hurt all week.”

“I know.”

Her eyes open despite her better instincts, and Natasha is staring at her, just the same as before. She can almost convince herself that her breathing is stilted too, Natasha’s own pulse a little quicker at the pit of her throat.

“Pick your poison,” she says quietly, almost a whisper. Almost enough that Maria leans in.

Maria doesn’t know how she could forget. Natasha started it in the first place, didn’t she? Didn’t Maria sit there are tell her not to think the very same thoughts that run through her own head? Didn’t Natasha grin like a cat and pull her so close that Maria could almost have lost herself to it?

She reaches over herself to pick up Natasha’s wharncliffe. She’s always chosen a drop point in her own work, but there is something to be said for handing Natasha her own favourite, entirely at her mercy. She can’t deny that the point of it doesn’t seem a touch scarier, a certain itch under her skin.

Natasha smiles sweetly as she takes it from her, shuffling slightly in her seat, and it sends her stomach fluttering in such an innocent way it almost makes her dizzy. The movement presses her knees into Maria’s thigh again, a dull sort of ache that she tries not to lean into despite everything else. Her ring finger still bleeds as Natasha turns her hand back into position, a slow but steady spread. Her blood is feathered at the edges, her fingers shiny from Natasha’s mouth, and she tries not to think about it, even as the blade is lined up with her palm again.

Maria’s breath hides in her chest, caught between her ribs, and the point refuses to move yet again. She glances up to meet Natasha’s eyes like she has done so many times this evening, and it’s the first time that she can see herself reflected in them so clearly. There is no hesitation, only Maria’s own desires in the darkness.

“You’ve been busy,” Natasha says, conversational and nothing at all like she’s holding a knife to Maria’s wrist. “This is going to slow down your work.”

Maria almost wants to sigh. She wouldn’t be above begging if she didn’t feel so guilty about it. “I know.”

“I’m just looking out for you.” Her eyes aren’t even on Maria anymore, considering the blade against her skin.

A breath, almost desperate. “I know—“

“I think…” She glances back up, pinning her there, and the tip of the knife turns slowly. It digs in just enough to be sharp. Just enough that Maria clenches her jaw, a slow breath through her nose. “Maybe I have a better idea.”

“Please,” she says before she can really decide what she’s begging for.

Natasha’s lips tug wider, something physical in Maria’s stomach again. It winds itself around her lungs and slithers along her spine as Natasha slides the cuff of her sweater along her forearm. It delights, almost fluttery, in the smooth glide as Natasha finally draws the knife away from her palm instead. She’s careful over the veins in her wrist, so delicate that Maria almost twitches under the sensation. But Natasha holds her steady, her grip hard in a way that makes Maria’s head spin.

She watches her work, barely breathing, so completely aware that Natasha is holding her life in her hands. It would take so little like this. She’s fought tooth and nail for her life the whole time she’s had it. She’s thought she was going to lose it more times than she can count on her hands. And she sits here with the most feared assassin that SHIELD has heard of, a pull inside of her much worse than fear. She can’t put a name to it all. She’s been avoiding it for so long.

But the blade passes her veins and it bites into her skin in just the same way as the others. Everything is so effortless, it almost doesn’t hurt at all. If she wasn’t staring directly at it, she thinks she wouldn’t know until it was too late. But her attention is zeroed into the space of this sofa, and she feels the pinch as she watches it settle that millimetre deeper. It isn’t much, and she knows Natasha would never dare to push it further. Instead, it leaves a little trail, brighter than the others. Enough to cut, but not quite enough to spill. It comes up prickly, almost an itch, and Maria doesn’t think she’s ever been someone to squirm before now.

She tries to sit still, she really does, but it feels like there is something under her skin, something crawling and electric and alive for the first time in weeks. She finds herself with her thighs pressed together and wonders just how far Natasha is willing to go.

The blade reaches the top of her forearm and Maria doesn’t want it to stop, doesn’t want the line to end, the buzzing in her skin. Natasha’s breath is visible in her chest, controlled and shallow. She’s sure her lips would be parted if she could tear her eyes away to look, but both of them are stuck on the cold line of the blade as it slows. It becomes a crawl in the inch and a half left, like maybe Natasha doesn’t want to pull away yet either. Maria tries not to tense, desperately relaxed in her grip.

There’s words on her tongue that she can’t make sense of and she swallows them before they can spill out. They feel like too much, even as it escapes her what she might actually beg for, what the words might come to be. She clenches her teeth until they ache like it might make up for the way she wishes Natasha would stop being so gentle.

And then she wonders if she’s managed to say them anyway, because the edge sinks deeper until red wells up around it, threatening to spill properly. They’re working in millimetres, the slightest fraction at a time, but that’s all the human body is made of. Everything is so small, so delicate. One millimetre is all there is between life and death, between veins and arteries, organs and tissues.

It presses a gasp from her, swallowed small despite the fireworks up her arm. She almost misses the new bite of it as Natasha sucks in a breath in turn. Maria’s heart skips in her chest, something like solidarity, something like a proof that she isn’t alone in this. Maybe she isn’t asking something awful. Maybe Natasha wants this just as much.

The tip of the knife finally reaches the crease of her elbow and suddenly it stings. It pulses like a paper cut, so incredibly fine that it’ll heal within the week and neither of them will ever be able to tell it was even there. But it bleeds now, as Natasha continues to hold her wrist like she might try to escape. She’s only cut about an inch, but it fills with that bright living colour and proves that Maria is still here, her heart still beating. The sight of it seems to soften Natasha’s hand and her thumb moves to stroke over the start of the line.

She presses into it like some sort of test as her eyes draw back up to Maria’s. It doesn’t hurt much, slightly sharp like a pinch, and Maria holds her gaze easily. She can see now that her lips are parted, her pupils wide to match. She feels the overwhelming urge to kiss her despite the way she stays planted in her seat. She feels like it might all break if she moves. It feels like she’s offering herself up like some sort of plaything, and if Natasha realises that she is alive, then it might all stop. She has all the evidence in front of her, in the tick of Natasha’s pulse in her throat and the way she stares back at her, but it still feels impossible to believe that she isn’t broken for this. It doesn’t feel like something someone might want in turn. She knows Natasha carries more guilt than she should ever have to feel about her talents and the way she was raised, and Maria can’t help but feel like she’s taking advantage of her somehow. She isn’t a weapon. She knows that. She doesn’t want her to be. She just wants to be broken.

But Natasha’s thumb presses harder until Maria can feel her own pulse thud up against the pressure, her fingertips fuzzy. It snaps her attention back to Natasha’s and she’s certain that her lips twitch in a smirk. The top of her arm still aches and suddenly Natasha’s other hand is warm there too, the knife placed somewhere that Maria tries not to miss. Her other thumb presses into the deeper cut near the top to make her hiss and she doesn’t bother to try and stop herself when she does. It hurts, plain and simple, and it tugs hard in her stomach when Natasha presses deeper. Her eyes play over Maria’s face like she could reach into her and pull all of her thoughts out into the space between them, bloody and tangled and horribly telling. She wonders if she’ll try. She wonders how deep she’s going to press her thumb into this cut and how far Maria will let her. She wonders if she could ever find it inside of her to say the word stop.

Maybe for the best, Natasha stops herself. She doesn’t let up, but she doesn’t push any deeper, and Maria’s breathing is shaky where it lights her up. Her attention on her doesn’t let up either as she drags her thumb downwards and Maria tries her best to keep her eyes open as she spreads her blood in the long line, all the way down to her wrist. It stops aching the moment she’s past the deepest part and Maria’s stomach twists for the way she misses it, even as she tries not to pant for her breath.

She watches Natasha bring her thumb up to her mouth, and she watches her lick the blood from it in one long stripe, painting her tongue red. There’s the same odd urge to see her with it smeared across her lips and she debates how incredibly insane of her it would be to give in and use her own thumb to put it there. But Natasha’s eyes dip to Maria’s mouth for the briefest of seconds and she doesn’t really think further about it before her good arm is coming up to cup her jaw instead, a welcome distraction from the stranger urges.

She leans across the space between them slowly, like Natasha might try to run all of a sudden. She doesn’t, of course. When has Natasha ever run from anything? When has she ever not done exactly what Maria has asked of her — in her own roundabout ways. She pulls Maria in the rest of the way like she’d been waiting for it, like she’s wanted her to do this the whole time, and she seems surprised when Maria presses their lips together like some sort of thank you. She kisses her like a lover, soft and unhurried and somehow like safety, and she supposes that Natasha must have been expecting the same sort of violence in return. She supposes she only has their last mistake to go by and Maria really wishes that wasn’t the way she thought of her.

At least Natasha doesn’t seem put off by it, her hands coming up to hold Maria’s face in turn. Her knife is still in her hand and the wooden handle of it is body warm and hard where the edge of it rests at her jaw. Her mouth tastes of iron as she kisses Maria back, something a little more urgent in the press of her lips. Maria is happy to let her lead instead of waiting for her to read too far into the implications of her softness. It’s one thing to bear her throat to her, but she’s tempting powers that are best left alone when she lets Natasha taste the desperation on her tongue, a want for something softer that neither of them can afford.

It’s a horrible, twisted sort of choice and she thinks she shouldn’t let Natasha do this either as she pushes her back into the arm of the chair. This can only end like last time. Natasha is only going to close herself away again, reminded of the horrors that Maria is doing such a terrible job of keeping inside. She’s always been so good at it. She’s always done such a good job of keeping them buried, cracks pasted over with something she can present to a good cause. She sees them in Natasha too, sometimes, and she thinks that’s where the danger is. Natasha does a much better job of killing them at the root, even when she talks about them with that bitterness in her tone, like she wishes she could cull them before they sprout new, but they give Maria a certain boldness, just to know that she isn’t alone in the shame of them. They chip at the walls she’s so carefully built.

But that’s all they are. Walls. A vain attempt to hide what lurks behind them. And they’ve crumbled to rubble at her feet over the course of this evening. She’s sure she’s getting blood on Natasha’s shirt as she reaches up to thread both hands into her hair and hold her close, but she doesn’t want her to stop. It’s the most she’s felt in weeks as Natasha climbs into her lap, heavy and warm and beautifully dangerous. She kisses her hard, her nose pressed to her cheek and teeth at her lip, and Maria lets herself be pushed into the back of the sofa.

Natasha’s hands are rough at her head, holding her like Maria might try to run, as if she can’t be sure that she’s even there at all. Her fingertips dig at her jaw, her skull, the nape of her neck, and Maria can’t say she doesn’t enjoy it. She likes the proof that someone wants her here. It feels like Natasha needs her when she holds her so desperately. She can only hope that her own hands don’t give her away when they don’t mirror that roughness. She prays that Natasha doesn’t catch on when they find themselves reverent over her skin. They drop to her waist by instinct and settle themselves over her hips like this is anything akin to how it all should be. She holds her a little closer and Natasha kisses her a little harder, and if it wasn’t for the handle still present at the side of her neck, maybe she could tell herself they’d done this all the right way. She could almost tell herself that they don’t live the lives that they do.

Natasha lets go of her then, pulling backwards in her lap to look at her with those same dark eyes that threaten to swallow Maria whole. The knife is strewn to the cushion beside them barely a moment later, Natasha’s hands at the hem of her sweater, pawing, dragging it upwards. This isn’t what Maria had in mind when she’d let Natasha drag her out of her office. This isn’t what she’d had in mind when she’d asked Natasha to press that knife to her skin. She’s almost disappointed, but she helps Natasha with her sweater anyway, raising her arms so that she can pull it up and over and toss it somewhere across the room. She has the vague thought that they might’ve gotten blood on it in the process, yet to dry on her arm, but none of it really matters as she lets Natasha kiss her again. This isn’t the same, it doesn’t make her ache from the inside out, but she can’t say she hasn’t wanted it either. Hasn’t she thought of this every time Natasha has spent the night in her bed, perfectly innocent? Isn’t this everything she’s told herself they’re too broken to have? Isn’t this a dream come true, to have Natasha desperate and kissing her?

She must be worse than she thought, for it to seem pale now, but she’ll bury down the darker desires until she might forget they were ever there in the first place. She still wants this. She still aches in a much baser way when Natasha rocks in her lap.

But then Natasha is reaching back across the sofa, trying so hard not to stop kissing Maria as she pats blindly around, and Maria thinks she would let her do anything in that moment. She’d say she would kiss her if she wasn’t already doing just that. Natasha huffs ever so slightly in annoyance and Maria fights not to laugh before she finally finds it. She pulls her upright again, dragging her back in as Natasha places the cold blade flat against her stomach. It makes an odd little noise in Maria’s throat, her stomach twitching against it, and then Natasha is laughing at her instead, quiet and breathy against her lips.

It seems absurd to be laughing here, when her heart is pounding so hard in her chest that she’s certain Natasha must be able to see it, or feel it when she leans to press them close together again. It doesn’t feel like they should be laughing like this isn’t what it is, like some part of Maria wouldn’t let Natasha slide that blade in to the hilt if she wished. Of course, Natasha doesn’t, but suddenly neither of them are finding it funny when the knife is brought up between them and the edge is settled just below Maria’s collarbones.

Maria’s hands stay resolutely at her hips as Natasha pulls back again. Her eyes are with her blade this time, and Maria watches her face in turn until they flicker back up like a question. She nods, almost imperceptibly, and she feels her throat bob as she swallows. She sees the way Natasha’s eyes track it before they drop back to reposition the tip of the wharncliffe.

She places it delicately and perfectly centre at the junction of her collarbones and doesn’t bother to wait before she runs it down just as carefully as ever. Inch by inch, a line of fire that Maria wishes she could watch. There is a certain pull to watching her expression as she does it that she can’t quite find it in her to break, but she knows by feel how beautifully straight the line is, a true tribute to Natasha’s precision. It tracks all the way down to meet her bra between her breasts and for a split moment Maria isn’t so sure that Natasha won’t cut it off of her to continue the line. She’s mildly thankful when she stops and the knife is repositioned near the top again. She drags it down in the same gentle way, opening up the same line by another trace. And then again, and again. Each a little shorter than the last and each done in the same overly controlled pace that has Maria trying not to tremble underneath her as she is opened up in centimetres.

She can see the way she bleeds in the blurred edge of her vision, attention still fixed on Natasha’s face like she might simply break if she looks directly at it. She feels the way it beads before it slides hot along the length of it, slow and sweet. Natasha’s eyes follow it briefly, and she does nothing to stop it as she continues to cut towards the middle. It must be deeper than the others by now, if the heat of it is anything to go by. It steals Maria’s breath as she presses herself into the back of the sofa, grasping for focus on anything other than burning sensation and the ghost of Natasha’s breath over her skin. She grips at her hips until she’s sure it must hurt, but Natasha doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t seem to see anything other than the red beneath her blade, her breath shallow and warm where it brushes over it.

The blood soaks into Maria’s bra, sticky — a slow drip by the time Natasha stops. She seems pleased with her work, a small quirk to her lips around the darkness in her expression. When her eyes pull back up to catch Maria’s, she wonders if she imagines the hesitation. She wonders how she could ever worry that she’d taken it too far when Maria is sure she’s shaking like a leaf, her pupils far too wide and her skin burning up. She’s certain that everything must be written in the sight of her, completely betrayed by her own reactions. She doesn’t know how Natasha is still here but she almost wants to beg her to continue anyway. Her lips part like she might.

But Natasha shuffles backwards ever so slightly, her thighs shifting to remind Maria of the heat between her own, the way they’ve been pressed together so hard she feels like she’s run a mile. She presses Maria’s shoulders even further back into the sofa and she lets her push her until she’s practically slouching.

They both watch as Natasha places the tip below her bra, right in the middle again, just where the fabric digs into Maria’s ribs. She presses down just hard enough to catch as Maria holds her breath. It’s no deeper than the others, just barely breaking her skin, but Natasha doesn’t move. She holds the tip right there as both of them stare it at and Maria can’t bring herself to look away as her breath starts to burn in her chest. She’s shivering slightly, and she’s trying so hard to stay still, to make this easy for Natasha. She knows she’d never forgive herself if she truly hurt her. She already thinks herself a monster for the things Maria asks her to do any other day of the year — the things they tell themselves are for the betterment of the world. Things so far from this.

But Natasha holds her blade inhumanly still against her and refuses to budge, and Maria has to take a breath eventually. It presses deeper as her ribs expand and Natasha’s arms stay locked in place, watching how far Maria will go. She breathes as deep as she dares, the heat brighter as it sinks millimetre by millimetre. She breathes until she’s sure it’s dangerous and then a little more. She watches the sharp point of the knife disappear into her skin and keeps going until that aches too, just to see if Natasha will let her. It still seems like such a small amount for the danger it might cause and she tries not to think about just how far she’d let that knife sink. This is as far as they go. Even this should be too much.

She breathes out again, practically melting into the sofa, and Natasha keeps the blade as deep as it’d ended. She places a hand warm at the side of her ribs, splayed wide like she’s soothing some sort of animal, and Maria can feel her own ribs move against it. It makes her horribly aware of how shaky her breathing is now. It makes her realise that she’s outright trembling, and Natasha’s eyes raise back up to hers for permission yet again.

She wonders what she finds in them each time, if she’s looking for anything like the mirror Maria is, hoping to see her own hopes and desires reflected back like they might not be so terrible as they seem in her own head. Or if she’s simply looking for the desperation Maria knows is plain to see, some sense of duty to continue this on until she thinks she’s satiated. Maria doesn’t think she’s ever owed her a thing in her life, but Natasha has always been one to see debts where there isn’t.

Whatever it is, she finds it and her eyes drop back down to yet another slow well of blood. She pulls just as slowly as every other time, forcing Maria to feel her choices — and maybe, if Maria lets herself dream, indulging in it herself, like a surgeon might delight in the neatness of their own cuts. It’s sharper than the rest, the edge deeper into the softness of her flesh as Natasha drags it down. It has her teeth clenched so hard they squeak in her own head in an attempt not to squirm. Her breath comes hard through her nose and she grips at Natasha’s hips until her pants bunch in her fists.

She pulls the knife all the way down to her navel, drawing open a line that Maria can finally see the depth of. It satiates something inside of her as if she hasn’t seen herself bleed countless times in her life, as if she doesn’t know that she is made of flesh and bone. She doesn’t think she’s ever felt so alive as she does in this moment, even as she fights the urge to press Natasha’s hand deeper into herself until she can prove that she is made up of human parts. She wants Natasha to pull out each organ and show her that she is whole and living, that she hasn’t left some integral part of herself somewhere along the way to whatever she is now. She wants proof that she has survived it, that she isn’t the same husk of a human that she feels like most nights. And this will have to do. This is close enough. She can feel the sting of it like an electric current through her teeth, and she can see her blood pool up through the ravine of her skin, fresh and bright and red.

Natasha continues down over her belly, her cut a little deeper where it starts again just after her navel. Her skin parts in a way she knows will hurt deeper than the rest. She wonders if it should really need stitches, but she knows that she won’t bother with them. She knows Natasha will call her a hypocrite when she sees it as it heals, for every time that she’s told her to stop skipping medical as she stitches herself up in her bathroom. She can only hope that she stays to do so — that she doesn’t hide herself away once all is said and done until all Maria is left with is a scar and a memory. She hopes it scars, she thinks suddenly. She hopes that Natasha leaves her mark on her and she thinks that should be a scary thought but it isn’t. Out of every thought she’s had here, everything that still swirls through her head, she thinks it’s one of the truest things.

Eventually, the line stops again, and she breaths in deep for the first time since that blade sunk into her ribs in the first place. The edge presses up against the waist of her slacks, still buttoned and professional up against the rest of her. They’re hot and uncomfortable against her thighs and she wishes that she’d found the time to change into something more comfortable like Natasha. It all feels a bit strange all of a sudden, to still be in her office clothes as they do this.

Natasha clearly doesn’t care, and she removes the knife only to get her hands on the button. The blade is smudged in her blood, and it smears it across her stomach too as the flat brushes her, held haphazardly in Natasha’s hand. Her head tilts back as Natasha finally slides the fly down and she doesn’t know why she can’t look. She wishes she wasn’t so affected as Natasha’s fingers dip under the band of her underwear. She wishes she wasn’t going to find her so irreparably far gone.

Natasha only gasps softly when she finds her slick through, already leaning up to find Maria’s lips and kiss her again. Maria lets her hands slip under Natasha’s shirt to splay over her back and hold her close as she slides her fingers around her clit. It draws a gasp from her that Natasha grins at, mouth still pressed to hers even as Maria’s hips kick up too, blade catching at her stomach. She draws her fingers back up in turn, slow and firm until Maria groans softly, only to dig them in hard, her nails sharp just underneath. Maria’s hips jump again and Natasha grins wider against her.

It’s great, but it isn’t quite enough and Natasha seems to know it, because the knife is back like it never left, like it’s as much a part of this as they are. Maria thinks she’d take Natasha however she gave herself to her, but that isn’t what they’re doing, is it? This isn’t something romantic. This doesn’t have to mean anything in the long run. She wishes it would. She wishes this could be the start of something softer, but she fears that they’ve stained it with their own blood already. Maybe it was already ruined when Natasha looked at her with those big, dark eyes all those nights ago, Maria’s gun in pieces in her hands. Maybe it was already ruined when she knew what the look meant, deep inside herself.

It isn’t worth thinking about here. There’s nothing worth thinking about when that edge is at her collarbones again and Natasha’s breath is hot against her face. She pulls back to stare Maria in the eye as she draws it up, a ticklish sort of scrape that will be gone by the morning. She lets the very tip linger at the centre of her throat, searching for that unknown thing again, and Maria leans up to kiss her before she can stop herself.

She can only be thankful for Natasha’s reflexes a moment later when the blade never so much as nicks her. The point turned to cold, flat metal in the split moment before Natasha’s lips are warm against her own again. She knows that she’s good, but it hadn’t crossed her mind at all and she thinks she’ll worry about that later, when her bed is cold and lonely and she realises just the weight of everything she is giving into here.

But Natasha’s knife is still at her throat, and she’s still alive to feel the harshness of it against the softness of her everywhere else. She’s still alive to feel the rough press of her fingers at her clit as she picks up frantic little circles that have Maria toeing the line of overstimulation. Her arm pulses in time with the line along her torso and she’s certain that Natasha’s shirt is going to be ruined by the time they part. The fabric is soft, but it stings where it presses against the fresh wounds. She wonders if she’ll throw it away after all of this, though she isn’t sure why she wouldn’t.

Her head spins a little as Natasha leans her weight into her throat. The metal is cold and hard, and even the blunt edge feels sharp against the cartilage of her throat. It makes it hard to breathe even though Natasha isn’t pressing hard enough to genuinely restrict anything, some innate part of her that shuts down against a threat. It makes her pulse rush in her ears, her heart rate double and her limbs jittery. She wonders how she only feels alive when she’s reminded just how easy it would be to kill her. It makes sense, really. What better way to prove that she really is still kicking than to put everything into overdrive. And that really is what it feels like. It feels like each little electrical pulse that controls her body has been connected to the main frame. Each little place that Natasha touches her burns like a bulb about to blow, blinding and hot. Her ears are ringing, though she doesn’t think she can actually hear anything at all besides the rasp of their breath and the mortifyingly slick sound of Natasha’s hand between her thighs.

Their kisses are painfully slow. Natasha holds her ground, ever careful, and Maria is only vaguely aware of the need for something more controlled when there is a blade to her throat. It’s nice in a way, to be kissed so thoroughly. Natasha makes up for the pace with enthusiasm until Maria thinks she’d probably be just as soaked if this was all she’d been afforded. She feels like she should give something in return, but Natasha almost growls when her hands move and even Maria isn’t so stupid here. Her hands stay pressed to her back, her fingers digging hard into the dimples at the base of her spine, and Natasha breathes a sigh that tastes like relief.

Maria barely gets a moment to think about it, some vague idea that Natasha had been worried for a split moment, before her fingers are picking up against her clit again, trying harder. It sparks up her own spine, straight through the open line of her torso, and she can’t quite stop the way it kicks in her hips. She kisses Natasha a little rougher for it, just as she’s shifted by her hips too, and that’s all it takes for the edge to catch.

It drags a rough sound through her throat, another twitch through her body that doesn’t have time to make matters worse in the split second before Natasha has already pulled back, burned. Her hand is out of Maria’s pants too and, somehow, she can’t tell which she misses more.

“Shit.” Natasha’s eyes grow wide. “Shit, Maria,” she curses.

“It’s fine. Don’t worry.”

Her hands come up to her throat, the knife lost somewhere on the couch beside them. Her fingers are so tender where they hesitate around the cut. “No, it’s not, Maria. You’re bleeding.”

“I know.”

Natasha continues to worry over the blood at her neck, pressing Maria’s head further back to get a better look. She doesn’t respond for a long moment, too caught up in her sudden fear. “I know,” she says like she’s only just noticed the hypocrisy of her own statement. “That was too close.”

Maria’s hands feel obtrusive suddenly, but she isn’t entirely sure where else to put them when Natasha is still in her lap. Truthfully, she doesn’t really want to let go. “It’s just a nick. I can’t even feel it,” she lies.

Natasha stares at her for a long moment, attention split between her throat and her eyes as her lips press thin. Her eyes start to shimmer and Maria really wishes she knew how to offer some sort of comfort here. She supposes they wouldn’t be in this situation if she had any semblance of softness inside of her.

“I don’t want—“ Natasha starts. “That was too close.”

“You don’t have to.” She fights the urge to stroke at her, something far too familiar for this conversation. “I’m sorry. You can go.”

It hurts to see the conflict in Natasha’s eyes, the little creases between her brows. “I don’t want to.”

“It’s fine. Forget this happened. I’ll clean myself up.” Her hands slip from her shirt at last. She presses them into the fabric of the sofa to keep them there.

“No,” Natasha says, pressing her thighs around Maria’s in a move she doesn’t think is conscious. “It’s fine, right?”

Maria nods before she can figure out quite what Natasha means. “It’s fine.”

Natasha’s eyes are almost frantic, her pupils still wide. “This isn’t a mistake.”

“What—“

“This isn’t like last time.”

“Natasha—“

“I need you to say it. Tell me this isn’t like last time.”

“It isn’t,” and that’s true. This is nothing like last time. But maybe it is.

“How?”

“What?”

“How is it any different?”

Maria’s eyebrows furrow hard enough to ache. “Natasha— “

“Tell me.”

“I can’t.”

It’s too much to explain. It’s different because Maria isn’t the one behind the trigger this time. It’s different because she can’t hate herself for the DNA she thought she’d distanced herself from, only to wonder if it’s so true after all. But it’s all so terribly the same. It’s the same because Natasha is still hurting. It’s the same because Maria is still asking too much of her, taking what isn’t hers. It’s the same because Maria is still going to hate herself at the end of it, and Natasha is still going to hate her much less than she should. It doesn’t matter who is holding the weapon, even if she’d thought maybe they were the same for a moment there.

Natasha is jittery on top of her, like all of the energy from before has nowhere to go now, ricocheting around inside of her instead. She leans forward, a hand braced beside Maria’s head. “Tell me I’m not making a mistake then.”

You are. “You’re not.”

“Tell me you want this.”

She doesn’t think she could have lived without it. “I do. Natasha—“

“Are you going to run?”

“No.” She never wants to show her face again, but if Natasha is asking, then maybe that means she won’t either.

“Good.”

Maria doesn’t get a chance to respond before Natasha is hauling her back in by the face, her body against her again to light up the line over her chest. She doesn’t truly understand what’s happening anymore, but one of Natasha’s hands is at her ribs, so close to broken skin, and she’s kissing her so hard that it makes her feel like both of them are vibrating. She thinks Natasha might be shaking now, all of that stillness lost along with the knife from her hands. She thinks that she’s glad that she’s staying, that this hasn’t happened just like the last. She doesn’t get the chance to mourn their mistakes before Natasha proves that they’re not so done with them after all.

And that’s what this is. It has to be a mistake. But Natasha’s fingers dance along the edge of sensitive, open skin. They slide along the raw edges for a brief moment that pulses along Maria’s whole body and she leans up to kiss her harder, to try and tell her in less than words that this is what she wants.

It must work, because Natasha’s middle finger presses into the channel she’d opened up in her stomach herself such a short while ago, still bleeding. She doesn’t dig in deep but it aches in Maria’s chest all the same, filling up her lungs like she might drown in the feel of it. Natasha’s nails are blunt but not short and it sends sharp little TV static shocks through her skin as she continues to slide her hand down, terribly, deliciously slow through the line of her.

Maria tries not to pant by the end of it, when Natasha’s bloodied fingers meet her slacks again. She doesn’t pause to ask before they’re dipping back underneath them and Maria is reminded that their little intermission has done absolutely nothing to cool the heat between her thighs. She twitches hard when Natasha slides her fingers back around her clit, firm either side of it like she’s teasing. She’s just as sensitive as before, worked right up to the edge before they’d stopped. It’s going to be embarrassingly quick, she thinks.

Natasha doesn’t waste any time trying to ease into it either. The moment Maria gasps against her mouth, her hips kicking up against her, her fingers are right back to the way it’d been before. She’s rough and she’s dirty, and Maria can barely stop herself from moaning into her.

It doesn’t help when Natasha tugs at her lip with her teeth just a little too hard. Their movement jolts them and Maria tastes iron a moment later. Natasha’s hand slides from her jaw, skipping past the way Maria’s throat still stings ever so slightly. It’s nothing compared to the rest of her, but she’s happy to let Natasha ignore it if it makes this easier for her. She’s happy to keep the sweet sting secret.

It’s difficult to focus on it though, when Natasha’s hand comes to rest at her collarbones. It feels teasing somehow as Natasha traces the dip of them, just skirting around the sore edges of the cut beneath them. It makes Maria tremble, a low sound in the back of her throat that threatens to become a moan, and she’s certain that Natasha is grinning against her lips again. She puts her out of her misery barely a moment later, tracing the line down to the middle in the same way as her stomach. It opens it up again, sharp where it had already tried to stop its bleeding. The edges are already trying to stitch themselves together, the line so clean and so shallow that it only itches. But the middle is deeper, the middle aches and pulses and lights Maria’s chest up from the inside as Natasha’s finger reaches it.

Her other hand still works rough circles into Maria’s clit and she knows that she’s barely kissing Natasha back as she fights for her breath. It feels like she’s going to burn out somehow as Natasha makes up for it by pressing her harder into the back of the sofa, her fingers digging in just that much harder.

It makes Maria groan, her hands still fisted in the edge of the couch where she’d never found the time to move them as Natasha traces the line down and down. She presses hard all the way over the band of her bra, a brief respite before her fingers find split skin again. And then Natasha presses into her stomach with her middle and ring finger together and she feels like she’s being split open entirely. Her hands finally land at Natasha’s thighs, sinking into the flesh of them until she worries she might bruise, but Natasha seems to have gotten exactly what she was searching for and Maria tries not to think about the noise that escapes her along side it, plainly embarrassing.

She breathes in deep, feeling like she might pass out all of a sudden, and it only has Natasha’s fingers dig deeper, like she’s trying to reach something inside of her. Maria almost wants to beg when her fingers draw back out a moment later, her hands gripping desperately until Natasha can splay her hand across her ribs. It paints warm lines of red across her skin before her thumb sinks back into the soft, open line of her stomach. She presses in so hard, so deep that Maria thinks it has no chance of healing nicely anymore. Her pulse is clear around it, sharp and so brilliantly bright that Maria’s breath stutters against her cheek. She grips harder at her thighs and Natasha’s hand at her clit stays steady.

“Please,” Maria says, barely a word. She doesn’t really know what she’s asking for. More, maybe. It already feels like so much. She doesn’t know what else she can take.

Natasha seems to take it in her own way and Maria almost wants to whine when she stops kissing her, some soft part of her still aware of what this could be, were they softer, less damaged, but Natasha’s lips are back on her before Maria can fully form her disappointment through the fog of everything else. There’s teeth at her throat, and then Natasha’s tongue is hot and soft and it burns over the blood dried there. Maria worries she might simply shake out of her skin as her teeth sink in gently around it, and then Natasha is sucking and she isn’t really being gentle about it and Maria can feel the way it opens up that cut again and her thumb is still buried in her stomach and—

It finally tips her over, with a stifled sort of gasp to the ceiling and strange little jolt of her knee. Natasha grins against her throat and Maria feels it through her abdomen in another hard tug as her fingers slow around her clit. It’s almost gentle as she tries to settle the heaving of her chest, and even Natasha’s bloody fingers seem to try their best to turn soft in the aftermath. She withdraws her hand at her stomach like she’s not sure what to think of it, even as her hand stays in Maria’s pants.

Maria watches her carefully, and suddenly her heart is leaping in her chest for all the wrong reasons. Suddenly she isn’t so sure that Natasha won’t run as she stares at her fingers in front of her, resting there to the left of her chest, just over her heart, smudging her own signature colour across Maria’s over-hot skin. Her words stick in her throat when she reaches for them. She thinks she wants to apologise, but she can’t find it within herself. She can’t read her expression in the light of this room, in the aftermath of their decisions.

Natasha’s hand draws out of her slacks then, both of them glistening and wet in vastly different ways. It tugs deep in Maria’s belly again and she sort of wishes she could lick them clean for her. Instead, she watches as Natasha does it for her, her tongue drawing along the length of her middle fingers. Arousal first, blood second. She doesn’t bother to do a good job of it, more to taste than to put on a show. Her hands are sticky at both sides of Maria’s jaw when she leans in to kiss her, and Maria is nobody to refuse her before she tastes the combination on her tongue. It drags one last soft groan from her and Natasha draws back looking pleased.

Her whole body thrums like a livewire and she is overly aware of the pulse in her injuries. She’s definitely going to need to treat them somehow, even if she refuses stitches.

“I’m sorry,” Natasha says, very quiet.

Maria can’t quite meet her eye. She still doesn’t know where they stand here, and she can’t bring herself to find out. She doesn’t think she could take it like this, even as Natasha continues to sit in her lap. “Don’t be.”

She frowns and Maria only thinks that she wants to kiss her again. She wishes she would dig her fingers back in if only to give her something else to feel. “Your stomach,” Natasha says, eyes dropping for a split moment.

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” The words pile up behind her teeth. A thank you swallowed and an I asked for it bitten back. Do it again, catches in her throat.

Natasha stares at her for a long moment, her eyes boring into Maria’s like she hasn’t just spilt her guts between them. She wishes she’d do it now instead of trying to figure her out through looks alone. She stares for so long that Maria thinks she’s going to disagree. She thinks she’s going to tell her she will worry about it, and that this can’t be healthy, and that Maria can’t be sane. She thinks she’s going to tell her about all the things she can do to get better and how she never wants to have to do this for her again.

She pulls back like she just might, like she’s going to let Maria down as easy as she knows how even though it would ruin her in every way, no matter how soft her words are, no matter how true her statements. But she only moves to stare at her own stomach instead, like she’s only just thought about the blood staining her own shirt.

“Some of these are going to need stitches.” Her voice is thin, like she’s looking at something she doesn’t quite know how to process.

“I’ll go to medical,” she lies.

“I’ll walk you.”

“No,” she says a little too quickly and a little too harsh. “It’s okay. You should find a clean shirt.”

Those two little creases form between Natasha’s eyebrows again and Maria wonders when she started scowling at her so much. Maybe just today. Probably just because of this. “My shirt will live,” she says.

“And so will I.”

“So let me come.”

“Why?”

“Does it matter?”

“Do you not trust me?” She shouldn’t, she thinks. She doesn’t know why she does.

Natasha quirks an eyebrow at her. “How many times have you marched me to medical? It doesn’t matter why.”

“I’ll be fine on my own.”

Somehow, she has Maria pinned. She’s still in her lap, seemingly happy to sit there all night. It wouldn’t be hard to remove her. She’s certain that Natasha would be gone in a heartbeat if Maria truly told her to leave. But she doesn’t want her to. Truthfully, she doesn’t really want her to get up at all, even if it exposes her intentions to go absolutely nowhere once she’s alone. “You said you wouldn’t run.”

“I’m not running.”

Her scowl doesn’t fade any, a tension in her face that Maria doesn’t like. “Locking yourself away still counts.”

She sighs, only part by her own choice. “I’m not going to lock myself away, either.” She’s not totally sure that isn’t a lie, but she hopes that it will soothe Natasha some.

Natasha squints ever so slightly, her jaw still set. “I’ll do them.”

“Do what?”

“Your stitches.”

“I’m tired,” she says, and it’s not really a lie this time. She is.

She hates that Natasha can read her so thoroughly. “You need to clean them anyway. Stitches won’t take much longer.”

“It’s fine. I’ll go to medical in the morning.” She has no intentions of letting anyone see these marks besides herself. It’ll be turtle necks for two weeks and she’ll hate herself every time the fabric catches on the scabs. She hopes the deeper ones scar, despite their clean edges, and she thinks she’ll hate herself every time she sees them too.

“Please, Maria,” Natasha says, her eyes almost wide and her voice a note desperate. “They’ll have questions, won’t they? What are you going to tell them?”

“They won’t know you were involved at all.” No one will. She just needs Natasha to leave it alone and forget.

“So, what? You slipped? These look deliberate, Maria.”

She almost shrugs before she thinks better of it. “I’m not the worst with a knife.”

“That’ll land you on probation with Fury. Just let me do it, Maria.”

“I’ll do it myself.”

“Maria.”

“I’ve done it more times than I can count, Natasha. I’ll be fine.”

“That isn’t the point.”

Another sigh. “Then what is? Because I want to go to bed. I’ve been working through the night nonstop for weeks and this is the first evening off I’ve had. I want to sleep, not argue over my own body on my sofa.”

Natasha blinks at her for a drawn out second, leaning back almost imperceptibly. It makes Maria feel cold already. She doesn’t want her to leave. She just wants her to stop prying. She just wants her to forget about all of this and stop making her feel like a monster, even if she deserves it. She supposes she always has been selfish.

“It doesn’t matter.” Natasha climbs off of her only to stand awkwardly in front of her instead. “Do what you want. I’m sorry that I dragged you back here.”

She turns without bothering to gather up her knives. The wharncliffe glints beside Maria on the couch, still smeared in her blood. Natasha cleans them obsessively, and it claws at Maria’s chest as she watches her walk straight towards the door. Some worse part of her thinks that leaving her knives only gives her an excuse to give them back — to see her even if Natasha tries to hide first.

In the end, Natasha never quite gets out of the door, her hand only halfway to the handle when Maria stops her.

“Okay,” she says from the couch. She waits for Natasha to stop completely, even if she never turns over her shoulder. “You can do the stitches.” Natasha does turn then, her hand still held in the air. Maria can’t bring herself to look at her, her head tipped back to rest on the sofa, staring at the ceiling. She closes her eyes. “You don’t have to leave.”

She can’t hear Natasha’s footsteps, soft socks over cheap laminate flooring, but somehow she knows that she’s walked away from the door. “Come on then,” her voice says, suddenly close. “Before you bleed through your sofa.”

It takes too much effort to push herself from her seat, her arm letting her know freely just how stupid she’d been. She risks a glance as she turns, and her couch is a dark colour already but there is a clear smudge on the edge of the cushion that she knows she’ll have no hope of getting out. She doesn’t let herself linger on it, though she wonders very briefly if Natasha will ever mention it after today. She hopes she’ll be around to have the chance.

She really is tired, now that the adrenaline has left her. Everything aches and throbs and burns and she wishes she could say that she’d never do this again. Fat chance that she’ll get to. But she knows she’d jump at it just the same. It’s proof, even now as the sweet edge fades. The pain is something living.

In the end, Natasha does everything for her. She lets Maria lean against the edge of the sink and try not to fall asleep standing up and in return Maria doesn’t flinch at the burn of the antiseptic. She grips at the edge of the counter when Natasha threads her needle and Natasha promises to use as few as possible. She’s true to her word, two at her chest and five at her stomach, just below her ribs. Maria manages to persuade her out of one at her navel.

It takes far too long for Maria’s liking, but she lets Natasha fuss until she can tell that she’s happy and tries not to complain about the bright light of the bathroom when her head pounds so hard.

“Thank you,” Natasha says in that certain sad way as she clears everything into the bin.

“You don’t need to apologise. I should thank you.” For more than just the stitches, she thinks.

“I’m keeping you up.” That isn’t what she wants to say and Maria can tell. There’s more on her tongue that she isn’t sharing, but Maria doesn’t have the fight in her to press her on it. Truthfully, she doesn’t think she wants to hear it after everything she’s asked of her today.

“This might be the first night I sleep through,” she jokes, not quite sure where she finds the humour.

Natasha’s smile is sad too and Maria thinks that’s worse. “Yeah.”

She stands awkwardly before the doorway to her room and it claws at her lungs again. It makes her feel like dry heaving, like maybe she can get everything out if she retches hard enough.

“You don’t have to leave,” she repeats. It’s all she ever says. It’s never a request.

“No.” Natasha hesitates again, that same thin smile. “It’s okay. You should get some sleep.”

She can sleep while Natasha is there, she wants to say. She only ever really sleeps when Natasha is there. She still doesn’t have the courage to ask. She doesn’t think she could ever find the egotism to ask for that after everything else today. She’s taken too much.

Clearly, she lingers too long too and Natasha speaks up again. “I’m not running.”

She’s too tired for this. She just needs to sleep. “Okay.”

Natasha nods, entirely serious this time, and Maria doesn’t stay in the doorway to watch her leave. Vaguely, she thinks she hears the soft clink of metal before her door.