Experience Tumblr like never before
OPF request, natasha braiding R's hair after a shower together with some discussion about their past during the braiding? Also some of the head lean backward, pulling on braid for a kiss please :) If you'd like (I would also love it) the showering scene with them both being dumb and nearly getting soap in their eyes or something lmao
yesssssss, this is beautiful!
| natasha x fem!reader | only pretty faces |
warnings: mentions of death
You hear Natalia switch the shower on, the water thundering through the pipes, and you slip out of bed and pad down the corridor to the bathroom. Still no lock on the door: you push it open with your fingertips and inhale the steam that billows out. You step in and shut the door with a click behind you: Natalia’s shadow twists in the shower.
“Hey,” she says, from behind the half-drawn shower curtain. “You scared me.”
You pull your clothes off, let them crumple in a pile next to hers, and tie your hair back.
“I’m not scary,” you say. You lift a leg over the lip of the bath and step into the spray: it’s hot and forceful. Natalia reaches for you, grabs your elbows and pulls you closer. She kisses you, her face warm and wet. Her hair is soaked down, soap bubbles drifting off her shoulders - you reach out and smooth them away with your palm.
“No,” she says. She runs her fingers over your eyebrows, dripping water into your eyes. “You’re not. You’re cute.”
You pull an awful face at her, but you don’t draw away. Eventually, she smiles at you, kisses you again with that smile still on her face.
“Want me to wash your hair?” she asks, palms flat against your sternum.
“Yes,” you say. You push your forehead against the strong bridge of her nose. She presses her lips to the space between your eyebrows. “Let me sit down. It’s early.” She laughs.
“Okay.” She presses lightly on your shoulders and you go willingly, sinking to the floor of the bathtub. You trace her thighs with your fingers as you drop, and then you twist so your back is to her, your knees up to your chest. The spray of water is rapidly wetting your hair. Natalia tugs it gently out of its hair tie and digs her fingers into it, sorting through the snarls and knots. Then she sits behind you, lays her legs out alongside yours, and starts the wash.
Her hands are strong and steady, lulling you back into a steady doze. You lay against her chest, allowing her to enclose you, less like a cage and more like a shield against the wide white wall behind the two of you.
Each cycle of the wash is gentle and thorough. You must sit there for at least an hour, but she doesn’t complain of wasting the day or sitting in discomfort in half an inch of warm water. This intimacy is strange, close and naked but not sexual, easy in a way that makes you want to sink into her, crack her open and climb inside. You grip her legs to ground yourself from those images.
Natalia’s hands paused in your hair. “You good?” she asks. The spray beats down on your shoulders
“Good,” you say. You squeeze her knees playfully and in retaliation, she smears bubbles over your cheeks.
“Idiot,” she says, affectionately. You lay your head back on her shoulder and she grins down at you.
“You’re dripping soap in my eye,” you say, blinking rapidly. Your eye begins to burn.
“Oh, God,” Natalia says, sticking her hands into the shower stream quickly to rinse them off. “Sorry, sorry-” She cups her palms and splashes water over your face, too much, and it goes spilling into your mouth and up your nostrils. You splutter, scrambling up into a sitting position and scrubbing at your face. Behind you, Natalia begins to giggle in between her apologies. You twist and spit a stream of water in her face.
When the two of you step out, washed and scrubbed pink and breathing hard from your little water fight, Natalia grabs her towel. You tug it out of her hands. She raises her eyebrows at you quizzically.
The words almost stick in your throat. “Let me,” you say. Natalia hesitates - hesitates like she never does - and you grip the towel, so fearful of her withdrawal.
“Okay,” she says. You nod.
You dry her, feet first, then shins and strong calves and thighs, and as you progress, she watches you carefully. Observes you like she’s learning. You dry her stomach, her ribs, her spine, pausing to touch the rise of muscle beneath her skin. You keep your touch deliberately gentle. Her shoulders lose their tension when you wipe the water from her collarbones.
“Done,” you say, and you fold the towel over the rail and step away. She’s watching you still, hands in fists by her side. She seems to shiver, and you crouch to pick up her fresh clothes and offer them to her. She takes them, but doesn’t put them on, rather holds them out in front of her as if she’s afraid they contain a spider or a venomous snake. “Nata,” you say. Her eyes are wet. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” she says faintly. “I-” she cuts off her words and stares down quickly at her feet. “Nothing’s wrong. That was sweet. That’s all.”
Those words break your odd little trance, shrugging off the moment like a gossamer layer. You grab your t-shirt and pull it on over your head, your hair dampening the collar.
“Do you want cereal?” you ask, moving past her out of the bathroom door.
It seems an age before she answers. “Yes,” she replies, her voice soft, frail like an icicle.
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
You fix her cereal for her and by the time she’s dressed and wandered through the door of the kitchen, your hair has dried in tangles down your back. She surveys it instead of your face.
“Do you want me to braid it?” she asks, without making eye contact. You shove her bowl towards her and she sinks into a chair, receiving it with both hands. “You remember? We used to braid-”
“I remember,” you say. “I remember most of it.” That’s not at all true. You remember gentle fingers in your hair, your own hands fumbling through soft red and black and blonde locks. You also remember the snap of a neck in your hands, the dead stare of a little girl with her hair still in braids, fresh from the night before. And you remember pain and pain and pain.
Natalia lifts her spoon to her mouth.
You chew meditatively on your toast. You want her legs around your hips again, your head on her shoulder. You want to lie against her, within her, forever. “I’d like that,” you say.
She smiles at you, relief dawning on her face.
She sits you down on the floor in the living room and switches the TV on. The punch bag is laid underneath the window like a sedan. Then she sits behind you, knees around your shoulders with a comb and a hairbrush and bends your hair to her will.
Natalia is gentle with you: always gentle. She pulls knots apart with her fingers, brushes your temple with her knuckles.
“I remember this,” you tell her, and her hands still in the half-done braid. The TV twitters on. “This was one of the good memories.”
“One of the only ones,” she says softly. She carries on, twists and turns, locking your hair into itself. “You really remember this?”
“Only the concept,” you say. That at least is true: the braids are your memory, not the hands that made them, not the faces they framed.
“I braided your hair,” Natalia says, after a long pause. Far too casual. “You wouldn’t let anyone else touch it. Except for Kira.”
“Except for Kira,” you echo. You don’t remember Kira. You don’t want to ask: some sickening part of you imagines broken bones and blood in the snow. Natalia finishes the plait and gathers up the rest of your hair.
She pauses.
She tugs lightly on your hair and you tip your head back obediently, until your crown is in her lap and she’s staring down at you. Your neck stretches and strains.
Natalia leans down and kisses you, a touch more like a steal. You reach as far as you can to kiss her again, but she withdraws and pushes your head back up.
Her fingers card gently through your remaining hair, gathering three strands. “You don’t have to remember if you don’t want to,” she says quietly. “God knows I’d rather be ignorant.”
“I’m not ignorant,” you reply. You watch the TV move and flicker with dazed eyes. “I remember the pain. I remember that I don’t want to go back. Anymore.” You’ve dragged yourself from the mud: no, she did. She rescued you.
“I know,” Natalia says. She strokes your cheek with her thumb and you lean into her touch. “I’m grateful for you.”
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notes: listen guys, I am so unmotivated right now. I’m so close to finishing TPTF and I’m so frustrated about this but here’s a little thing to keep you hooked. (also I linked my ko-fi in my bio if you felt like giving me money UNRELATED to fic writing because I am NOT MAKING MONEY OFF this, okay marvel?)