Evermore

Chapter 11

The blizzard was still going strong two days later, but the wind had picked up, making the storm worse. Not only was snow hitting the windows, but there was zero visibility, making it nearly impossible to take out the dog.

When Natasha entered the kitchen that morning, Pepper and the boys seemed sullen, especially Bruce, who looked very on edge.

When she sat down after getting a plate of food, she looked around at the table and saw Tony staring at her, which annoyed her, so she flipped him off. It cheered up Clint, who snickered. Steve rolled his eyes, clearly not having the energy to scold anyone.

Tony was one of the few she got along with, probably because she could banter with him. Morgan was adorable. Natasha enjoyed the little time she spent with Pepper, who usually spent time with her family and making sure her husband didn't blow something up.

The other guys were nice, but for some reason, Bruce was the easiest to talk to. But she could tell he was keeping something from her. She never pushed him to tell her, especially since she would be leaving soon, or at least she hoped.

"Where's Morgan," Natasha asked before taking a bite of food.

"She's in the other room with Fanny," Pepper answered. Morgan loved to play with the dog, and Fanny enjoyed the extra attention.

"So, Natasha," Tony piped up. "Do you have someone special back at home?"

"Tony," Pepper scolded. All of the men except Bruce looked at her waiting for an answer.

"No, it's okay," Natasha said as she shook her head, then addressed Tony. "No, I don't. All of the guys in town aren't my type, and most of them think I'm weird because I prefer to keep to myself. A few don't like me because I'm a better fighter than they are."

"Where I'm from female warriors are held in high regard," Thor said.

"Can I move there," she joked, which made Thor smile. This wasn't the first time Thor had mentioned he wasn't from here, but when she asked where he lived, he just said far away in a sad voice. That was the last time she brought it up.

"Buddy, can we talk," Tony asked. Natasha noticed he was directing his question to Bruce.

"What about," Bruce asked.

"Stuff."

Bruce put his spoon down after taking a bite of oatmeal and looked at Tony with an annoyed facial expression. As if he knew what the other man wanted to talk about and didn't want to discuss it.

Natasha turned her attention back to her food and was going to tie her hair back until she realized she didn't have a ponytail holder on her wrist.

"Excuse me a minute," she asked as she got up from the table and headed to the room she was staying in.

After Natasha entered the room and found what she was looking for in her backpack, she headed back downstairs. She heard voices on her way back into the kitchen.

"Bruce come on, man," she heard Tony exclaim.

"What's the point," Bruce asked, then nearly ran straight into her as she rounded the corner. "Sorry!"

"It's fine."

He nodded, then walked past her as she made her way to the kitchen. She tied her hair back when she sat down.

She had just put her plate away after eating when Clint spoke up from his seat. "Hey Natasha, want to see the target practice room?"

"You guys have a target practice room?"

The room in question was huge. The target practice was on one side, and there was a wall with knives and arrows on the other. Several bows were hanging on the other wall near the weapons. There was a table in the middle of the space with some broken arrows scattered on it.

"All right," Clint said while limping toward her. "What do you want to do first?"

"Knives."

"Go ahead. After this, I'll show you where we spar."

Natasha threw almost every knife and hit the bullseye about 99 percent of the time.

Clint, however, was a different story. The man never missed a single shot and hit a bullseye every time with knives and arrows.

"How did you do that," Natasha asked, impressed.

"Just good aim. Come on. I'll show you where you can challenge Steve in a rematch."

The sparring room was bigger than the target practice area. The floor felt like a gym mattress. The chairs looked like they were attached to the walls. Thor was sitting in one of them while watching Tony and Steve, engaged in a match. Steve eventually got the upper hand, and Tony called it.

"This'll be fun," she thought.

Unlike the guys in her town, these men were supportive and cheered her on.

Bruce entered the room and seemed impressed when she pinned down Steve. Bruce turned down a match when she offered, saying he needed Tony for something. She watched as they left, then took on Clint for a few rounds.

After beating Clint again, he asked her, "Rematch tomorrow?"

"Sure," she scoffed a bit. "You guys like to wrestle, don't you?"

"We get bored a lot. If you need me, I'll be near the ceiling."

She only knew him for less than a week, but Clint felt kind of like a big brother. She would love to introduce him to Laura. That is if he ever left Narnia.

She went to the lab and saw Bruce and Tony were hard at work on something, so she made her way toward her room. She wanted to bathe and change anyway.

"Natasha," a voice behind her called as she headed up the stairs. She turned her head to see Bruce walk toward her.

"Hey."

"Hey," he replied. "I know it's not easy being stuck here, and I just wanted to make sure you're okay."

"I'm fine, thanks. Are you okay? You seemed a bit off earlier."

"I'm sorry, I was rude. Sometimes this curse gets us. This morning it got to me and Tony, and we had a disagreement," he said while fiddling with his hands. Then he looked at the floor, mumbling about a witch in a foreign language under his breath.

"Are you speaking Italian," she asked in the language.

"Si," he replied as he looked back at her, surprised.

"How many languages do you speak," she asked in Russian.

"All of them," he replied in Latin, smiling. She couldn't help but smile back.