. (differentcall) wrote in districtmarvel, @ 2016-01-06 04:14:00 |
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Entry tags: | natasha romanoff, tony stark |
Who: Natasha and Tony
Where: District 7, Victor's Village
When: Over a pleasant weekend.
What: Stane isn't going to get a chance to murder Tony, because Natasha is going to do it for him.
Warnings: Non-sexual nudity, some light non-graphic violence, description of symptoms of depression in the opener.
The thing about feeling a bout of depression creeping on - and Natasha had felt it encroaching for weeks, ever since the opening of the Maximoff Hotel before it had finally sunk its teeth all the way in the night of Clint's anniversary party - was that there was really nothing that could be done to ward it off. It came and went as it pleased and by now, she was familiar with all its myriad symptoms. The rhythm of it was nothing that surprised her anymore. Every Victor had their own mental health mazes to crawl through, anxiety or alcoholism, drug addiction or violent flare ups; this one was just hers, and as far as post-traumatic conditions went, well, Natasha had seen all the ways it could be worse. But in the world they resided in, there was never really the option of sinking into it, turning off the lights and the phone and crawling into bed and laying there numb and quiet, the way every wrinkle in her brain pleaded for. There had been too much ugliness and too much loss in too short a time, and she wanted to shut down completely for awhile. But disappearing from the limelight wasn't an option, it was a death sentence, and she had already been off at too many major public appearances, when going through the motions was about the best thing she could push herself to do.
Sometimes, it just had to be ridden out. There was always the other side, it was just a matter of getting to it. Knowing it would pass was sometimes enough. Sometimes, when it had bitten deeper, it took a little more, it took a spark.
This time, the spark had come in the form of Tony fucking Stark.
Bringing Tony with her to District 7 had served a couple purposes, the first being that she really did have to show her face back here at least a few times a year, and she hated being in this huge, sprawling house alone. The second was that a change of scenery, giving herself some kind of task, was always a good booster to get the proper chemicals flowing in her head again. And third, she needed somewhere to hang the hideous, gigantic painting of naked tree-women he'd given her, and she certainly wasn't going to leave it anywhere she actually had to look at the thing. (Because she couldn't just throw it out; Tony didn't make sincere gestures all that often, and in spite of how truly heinous those gifts had been, she knew what sincerity on him looked like. He was trying to make it up to her without the two of them having to dig deep into exactly what it was that needed to be made up for in the first place, and she didn't want the gesture to go unappreciated.)
And it had been nice, at first, because he was good company. Good company, and good sex, and he'd brought good wine. With the two of them, it was always easy. Always had been, this mutually beneficial arrangement that had turned to something - she didn't know, something like friendship along the line. It had still been so jarring, how upset he'd been after he'd heard what had happened with James, the strange layers that she didn't really want to unpack when she'd gone to see him so he could satisfy himself that nothing permanent had marred her.
She felt just better enough laying in bed with him in her house in Victor's Village, the view out the window of the thicket of pines that she'd told him months ago was the one thing she loved about this house. He'd made her laugh, they'd spilled wine across the sheets and fucked instead of cleaning it up and laughed more at the mess they'd made, her skin stained deep purple in loops and whorls. She'd tasked him with changing the sheets while she showered, and as she washed her hair, she'd been thinking that she could see it now, at least, the point where this particular bout of thick sadness would pass.
Then he'd climbed into the shower with her, bent in to bite her neck, and just as she'd been about to suggest another round, he'd murmured a whole lot of bullshit into her ear.
Really, Natasha ought to have realized that white hot searing anger was the best medicine.
The mirror over the medicine cabinet cracked as her aim went wide this time, the bar of soap she'd thrown at him slipping out of her hand at an angle she hadn't intended. "I can't believe you've spent all these years touting yourself as a genius!" she shouted at him, the shower door slamming closed behind her as she advanced on his retreating form. "You're a bigger idiot than Steve fucking Rogers, and you know why? Do you know why, Tony? It's because you're the one who's supposed to know better!" She'd salvaged the shampoo bottle as she'd gone after him, still in need of a weapon, and she whipped it at his stomach with deadly accuracy, hair still wet and streaming over her shoulders, eyes wild with rage she wasn't even attempting to conceal. She'd worry about covering up or grabbing a towel once she'd taken his fucking head off.