𝐁𝐔𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐅𝐋𝐈𝐄𝐒 | 𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘢 𝘙𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘧𝘧 [✓]

Ch. 30 With All Due Respect [𝔢.]

Word count: 1.35k

Eliza's POV:

"Elle?"

I look up to see Nat at the doorway. I smile weakly at her before returning to my work. She walks slowly towards me and pries the papers from my hands.

"Elle," she says again, only this time it's desperate, almost whiney. "Please, I need to talk to you."

"Fire away, Nat."

"Well first, have any if us done something wrong?"

I try to control my breathing. "No."

"Then why do you always seem so absent?" There's a pout in her eyes, soft and sweet.

"There are a lot of things on my mind." I reply, partially uninterested in having this conversation.

"You can't use clichés, Eliza. Are you scared?"

I laugh bitterly. "What exactly would I be scared of?"

Having this conversation.

Admitting to your feelings.

Of hurting Nat.

Of loving.

"Eliza, I need to stop Dreykov. I tried before, thought I'd done it, but I hadn't. I-I . . . I need to do this."

I look at her with silenced eyes. "Then what are you still doing here?"

"Waiting for your blessings, I guess." Her laugh is intoxicating. I push back a smile. "No, I'm not leaving you alone."

"I wouldn't be alone, Natasha. I have Wanda, and Pete."

"But I would be," sighs Nat. I can see her problem, she likes me too much. Her emerald eyes glimmer a little in the light of the rising morning sun. She's been working out, I can tell, there are still beads of sweat settled on the edge of her hairline that she hasn't yet wiped away. But her breath is shaking, something not normal when she's been throwing herself at a punching bag for an hour.

"Then don't go. We'll find another way, Fury will have a backup plan."

She says nothing for a good moment, her mind running wild with thoughts she's transfixed on, problems she's sure of fixing. I slump back in my chair and play with the pen in my fingers, tapping it annoyingly on the wooden desk. My eyes flicker over the paper in front of me then back at the woman in my doorway. I nod towards the bed, gesturing for her to take a seat. She does so, but not before politely closing the door - gently enough that it makes little to no sound.

"I just have so much on my plate."

"I though you said no clichés, Romanoff."

She scoffs, "I though we said no surnames, Parker. That really hurt." She faints a heartbreak and sits down on my bed. I stand from my chair only to sit with her, our bodies creating an indent in the mattress so deep that I slide towards her. She wraps an arm around my waist as her other hand runs up my body, pushing me down so that I lay on my back. I feel weird without my brace and arm-sling, but hell do I feel free. This was the most I'd talked, or smiled, in weeks.

"How's your arm?" Nat whispers against the skin of my bare neck.

A breath hitches in the back of my throat as I try to breathe like a normal person. Shit, does she make that hard. "Banner cleared it earlier. I'm good to start strenuous activities again."

The attack on my shoulder had left me nerve damage, but with the Power Stone in my system, it didn't seem like it really effected anything else. The blade had narrowly missed my bones and crucial shoulder ligaments, but the blood loss seemed to have an affect on me that fucked up a tonne of things.