"Good morning, my super spy."
I leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead—right as her hand shot up with a knife.
I caught her wrist mid-swipe, grinning.
"While I was expecting a kiss or maybe a little hawk tuah, a blade to the jugular wasn't on my list."
She didn't flinch, didn't blink—just took the knife back with effortless grace.
"Not my fault you sneak around like a damn ghost. If you were anyone else, I'd be mopping your intestines off the floor."
She flung off the blanket with a smooth twist, revealing a compact pistol in her other hand—already aimed dead center at my ribs.
I gave a low whistle.
"Double-tap preparedness before sunrise. God, you're hot."
My hand drifted, not for the gun, but lower—fingers tracing the line of her stomach, feather-light.
Her breath hitched.
"Knife or gun." I murmured, watching the goosebumps rise along her skin, "You've got a waist made to be worshipped. I could hold it like a prayer and still not get enough."
She arched an eyebrow, the corner of her mouth twitching.
"The sun hasn't even risen, and you're already flirting like a drunk poet."
She leaned back, but didn't pull away as my touch followed the curve of her hip.
"Was last night's humping not enough? Or are you just addicted to getting blue balled?"
I laughed quietly, lips brushing against the shell of her ear.
"I wasn't the only one humping." I whispered, trailing my fingers along her thigh. "You moved like a woman possessed. I've seen combat drills less intense."
She was about to reply—something cutting, probably—when I suddenly pulled away and, with a quick flick, threw her knife across the room.
Her eyes sparked with something feral.
"We both liked it." I said, voice low, breath hot against her skin. "Don't pretend otherwise."
A smirk played across her lips as she slowly turned toward me, gun still in her hand, now pointed lazily at my heart like it was part of some post-coital ritual.
"Yet you didn't stay." she said. "Slipped out of bed like a ghost. No note, no goodbye. What's the matter, Ranger? Scared you might actually feel something?"
I leaned in, so close our noses nearly brushed.
"Natasha." I murmured, eyes locked to hers. "If I stayed, it would be a one-time thing. And you know it."
I kissed the edge of her jaw, slow and deliberate. Her fingers twitched on the grip of her gun—but she didn't pull away.
"This shouldn't be some casual entanglement." I continued, voice roughening as I moved to her ear. "No secret mission quickie, no spy-on-spy novelty."
She shivered when I grazed her earlobe with my teeth.
"I don't do onesies." I whispered. "And I don't share. I keep it till the end of time."
She laughed—quiet, throaty, dangerous.
"And If I wish to be shared?"
Her voice was soft. Dangerous, like silk over steel.
I didn't answer right away. Instead, I took her hand—the one still wrapped around the gun—and let my fingers trace the curve of her trigger finger.
"If that's what you wanted." I said slowly. "then I was never the moon to you."
A pause. My eyes never left hers.
"Never the trickster. "
"Never Kuekuatsu."
Her brow arched, but I could feel her pulse shift.
"If you never wanted to be truly mine." I continued, voice low and quiet. "Then you were just the wind."
I leaned in and brushed my lips over the back of her hand.
"A wind I watched only to see how the leaves would dance. Nothing more."
She didn't speak, didn't blink. But her jaw tightened.
I gave a half-smile. Not bitter. Not hurt. Just true.
"And me? I'd just be a stranger. An acquainted ghost. A face in the smoke you passed through without staying."
I touched her cheek gently, thumb brushing under her eye.
"I don't share. Not because I'm possessive."
I leaned in close, breath grazing her ear.
"I'm just… painfully, violently jealous of the stories I'm not in."
And then I pulled the trigger.
There was no flash, no sound—just movement. Just pressure.
The bullet struck me dead center, a cold heat burrowing into my chest like a final punctuation mark. I stumbled back, the world tilting, weightless and heavy all at once.
She was on me in an instant.
Her pistol clattered to the floor as she caught me and lowered me to the bed. Her hands were frantic—peeling back fabric, pressing against the wound, cursing under her breath in every language she knew.
"Don't you fucking dare." she yelled. "Don't you dare do this."
She was already yelling for Fury, for med evac, for every damn asset SHIELD had. Her voice cracked mid-command.
I watched her.
I didn't speak. I didn't fight the fade.
I just watched.
Her face flickered through a storm of emotion—shock giving way to realization, realization into disbelief, disbelief into rage, and rage… into something far more fragile.
Grief.
As the cold crept in, I raised one hand, weak and trembling. Just enough to brush a strand of hair from her face.
I tilted her chin toward me, needing to see her eyes—clear, wild, and heartbreakingly human.
"Your eyes." I whispered "They're beautiful."
Her breath hitched.
"So beautiful." I went on, slower now. "And yet they tell a story I haven't earned a place in. Not yet."
Then—my body jerked.
The bullet dropped from my chest with a metallic clink, landing between us like a secret finally confessed.
Turbo energy surged beneath my skin—blue, sharp, living. Like veins were recharging, rewiring.
My heart sparked.
The flesh closed. The wound sealed.
And the only proof that anything had happened at all was the hole in my shirt… and the stunned redhead still straddling my lap.
I sat up slowly, muscles reforming as if the pain was just a memory I didn't need to keep. Her hands were still on me, frozen.
I looked at her, really looked, and smiled—not cocky. Not smug.
But soft. Private. Something reserved only for her.
"I told you." I said quietly. "I'm jealous."
She blinked, confused, furious, relieved—so many things at once.
"But not of anyone else. Not like that."
I reached out and placed her hand over my chest, where the wound had been.
"I'm jealous… of time. Of fate. Of every page in
your story I didn't get to be a part of."
Her lips parted slightly.
"I don't want to be the last chapter." I said. "I want to be written into the middle. From the beginning. Into the mess. The blood and laughter and long nights. All of it."
A beat.
Then I smirked again. This one had teeth.
"And for the record… I do make one hell of a cliffhanger."
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I am kinda busy, if you can even call it that. So, once again early Chapter.
The romance finally ends for now. Its gonna be a long time later when it finally comes.
And goddamn, If I could I would copyright some of the lines.