Always and Forever | Peter Parker's Little Sister

6. This scene feels like what I once saw on a screen

"Nice job, really," Natasha says breathlessly, standing up and grabbing her water bottle before walking over to the bench by the entrance to the gym.

"Really?" Wanda asks, walking over to where Nat's sitting, practically bouncing up and down, her voice much like Natasha's, is slightly more breathless than usual.

"Really," Natasha says, offering the girl a small smile, remembering how important that extra validation from Clint had been during her first months, years really, out of the Red Room.

Wanda grins happily at that and sits down beside Nat, taking a minute to rest.

"Hey Jarvis, what time is it?" Wanda asks, leaning her head against the wall and letting her eyes fall shut.

4:30 pm, Miss Maximoff

"P.M.," Nat remarks with amusement, "that's a new one for us."

It was unusual for her and Wanda to spar during the day. Sure they would participate in regular training with the rest of the team, but two of them tended to spar one on one at night (or morning depending on how you look at it). Sometimes it would result in a semi heart-to-heart between the only two full time female members of the team but generally it would end with them heading soundlessly to bed and passing out for a good 4 to 6 hours of sleep.

"Do you want to go again?" Nat asks, turning to face Wanda, who looks like she's about to pass out. With any other person she would've insisted they go again but she had learned over the past few months that Wanda tended to overwork herself (something she was guilty of herself, not like she'd ever admit that) plus she had only just turned 16.

"Sure," Wanda says breathlessly, wavering just slightly upon standing upright. If she had been with anyone else they wouldn't have noticed but Natasha being Natasha always did.

"That was an offer not a command," Nat says, standing up and reaching out to steady the young girl even though she had barely lost her balance at all. "When was the last time you ate?" she asks the brunette, doing her best to keep her voice from creeping into the accusatory or judgemental tone that it tended to slip into.

"Late breakfast at eleven?" Wanda says sheepishly, averting her gaze to the floor.

Nat smiles reassuringly at Wanda, she hadn't eaten since her small excuse for a lunch at around twelve, so she really wasn't that much better off. But training tended to take a lot more out of Wanda, she still wasn't fully used to the amount of energy it takes to control her powers, not just use them, and the fact that she was still underweight from her time at Hydra.

Nat, however, was used to this. While training with an enhanced person was a new challenge, the moves and maneuvers were nothing new to her, it was just learning to readjust her judgment when it came to fighting someone like Wanda. What moves work and what don't. She was also used to running on less food. Not a fact she was proud of, but true nonetheless. Though, as of recently, she had stopped the training regimen that involved a lack of nutrients. If someone were to take her it would be better for her to be taken when she had been fully eating rather than when she was training for an experience of not having access to food, she had reasoned with herself.

"Well I haven't eaten since twelve," Nat says, beginning to usher Wanda out of the room, now seriously worried that the girl might pass out. "So I'd say we're both due for a late afternoon snack."

Wanda nods in agreement, breaking off from Natasha to pick up some of the sparring equipment they had used.

"Wands you don't have to do that right– какого черта?! (what the hell?!)"

In the seconds previous, Wanda had just been picking up the sparring mats and now there is a small child hovering in the air, courtesy of Wanda.

Slowly, Wanda lowers the small girl to the floor, and had the circumstances been any different Natasha would have been impressed.