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You could swear her skin was glowing. Or at the very least reflecting the colors around her. Soft golden light shone around onto her face from the cracked window next to her chair, and she basked in the light as if she had just won every award the world had to offer. She didn't have the right to be this fucking pretty.
Her golden hair floated around her head, almost literally, forming a halo that made her look even more like an angel. Her skin was only several shades lighter, and her cheeks scrunched up in a way when she laughed that you could only describe as euphoric. Her piercing blue eyes only complimented her features, and your eyes were instantly drawn to her impossible beautiful cheekbones.
If only the woman below that was as beautiful as the face it belonged to.
Carol was the enemy. Not literally, of course. But she was the enemy. Utterly unsympathetic when you had told her about the death of your best friend in the dusting, you had grown to despise her within mere minutes of a word coming out of her mouth.
She laughed like she didn't notice you glaring. And when she finally locked eyes with you, her lips formed a smirk and kept on giggling.
In the brief days that she had returned to earth, she made it her mission to do everything for the sole purpose of lighting rage inside your chest. No one had the right to make you feel this way, least of all her.
She had returned to earth to "check-in." In the past 3 years since the snap, the world had taken a turn for the worst. Not only was every other person gone, but the death toll was slowly rising. Crime rates were increasing, and the suicide toll was only getting higher.
Every single damn day of your life you had dedicated yourself to helping the people on earth, and the only thing she had on her mind was the big picture. Trying to bring people back that couldn't be brought back. Bullshit.
All you were trying to do was make sure that the people who had left stayed alive.
"(Y/N)? Would you like a scone." She said it in a normal voice, but you could feel the passion behind the words.
"No thank you. I'm careful about what I let others feed me. Because I'm careful. Unlike some other people I know." You say in the most passive and sickly sweet voice you could muster.
"I'm very cautious about keeping myself, and others, safe. I'm just nice enough to do it politely." She responded in the same voice as before.
"Carol, (y/n). Do I need to remind you that this is a professional meeting, where we are to talk about important topics only." Nat said in a stone-cold tone. Natasha was never the most playful person, to begin with, but in the past 3 years, things had taken a turn for the worse.
When someone is already flying by the seat of their pants and is about as stable as a bull in a china shop, you tend not to provoke them. And by provoke, I mean of course murdering half of humanity.
"I was being professionally, just Carol here was-"
Natasha sharply cuts you off. " Y/N. "
"Fine." You say, internally rolling your eyes.
Carol looks you dead in the eyes and gives you a smirk. Damn this woman.
You had been through hell. You had talking people of bridges, you had stood up for abuse victims in court, you had watched the people you had loved die. You were a stone-cold bitch. But with Carol, you might as well be a 2-year-old with a pair of scissors and a disturbing lack of adult supervision.
Once the meeting was over, you sparked a conversation with Natasha. "Hey Nat, do you wanna get some lunch?"
She looked at you, and then down at her phone, and then at you again. "Um, I can't. Not today." She looks behind her shoulder, and a sinister smirk creeps onto her features. "But I'm sure Carol would love to go out with you."
"Natasha, no. I said no."
Her menacing grin only intensifies. "Oh come on (y/n), you could cut the sexual tension between the two of you with a knife."
"It's not sexual tension. It's just tension. Because we hate each other."
"Mm, I don't think so." She turns over her shoulder and calls to the blonde. "Carol, could you come here for a sec?"
Carol's head perks up, and she walks towards Nat, a scowl forming on her face when she sees that you're next to her. "What is it?"
"Do you want to go to lunch. Will (y/n) and I?" She questions politely.
"That sounds great, but doesn't (y/n) have to do that... Thing?"
You turn on your sickly sweet smile for what seems like the ten-thousandth time. "No, I canceled it. Just. To. Have. Lunch. With. You."
Natasha is almost guffawing at this interaction between the two of you. "Alright then, lunch it is!" She starts walking right without any hesitation, and both you and Carol have to run to catch up to her.
"I saw this cute little Italian place. Do you want to go-"
"Chili's." Natasha stops her pace and looks back at you.
"What. It's an incredible experience that I'm sure we'll all enjoy."
It's now Natasha's turn to wear the fake smile. "Great."
You reach Natasha's car, and she quickly whips out her car keys.
"Oh, we're riding together?" Carol exclaims with disgust.
"Yeah, saves energy," Natasha exclaims as she checks her phone.
"I call shotgun!" You counter, trying to do anything to get away from Carol.
"No shotgun. I think it would be nice for the two of you to bond. I wish it was in a bedroom, but a car will do." Natasha says, still looking down at her phone.
"What was that?" You asked, hoping that you didn't hear what you thought you heard.
"No shotgun, window's broken." She replies, opening the door.
You and Carol squeeze into the back seat. It wasn't a tight fit, by any means; but anywhere that isn't 50 feet apart from her is hell on earth. How was she so fucking pretty.
Every time your skin brushed together you shot up as if you had just touched a shock wire. The glares passed between the two of you could freeze even the darkest parts of hell.
As you were getting out of the car, you slammed the door in Carol's face. She opening it, and it was obvious she was pissed.
"Oh come on, you're a fucking superhero, if you're afraid of a car door then you're in the wrong line of work."
She doesn't respond to you and instead flashes you one of her infamous fake smiles.
The Chili's is cozy, with only 15 or so booths, less than 5 of them preoccupied. The hostess kindly led you to a booth, in the corner of the room. You slide into the booth first, and your shoulder pushed against the plastic wallpaper when you moved into your seat.
Carol takes her position in the seat in front of you. Natasha doesn't sit down.
She makes deadly eye contact with you as she pulls her phone out from inside her pocket. "Oh look, I just got a text message." She exclaims, not breaking eye contact.
Natasha quickly flashes you the screen of her phone, showing that in fact, she had not gotten a message. "I have to go. Emergency."
"Are you sure." You say, yet again feigning a smile.
"I'm positive, there's an emergency at work."
Carol attempts to get up and join Natasha before Nat gives Carol a disapproving glance.
"There's always going to be an emergency, but there isn't always going to be lunch." You say, cocking your head and putting on a smirk.
"No," Natasha says. And smiles at the two of you. "Have fun."
You flip her the bird, and without even turning around she returns the favor.
"This is going to be fine." You say.
"Yep," Carol responds, popping the p.
The two of you study the menu for a couple more minutes.
You begin to notice that whenever you adjust yourself Carol does the same, and you do as well, subconsciously.
The waitress walks up to you and politely introduces herself. She asked you what you wanted and, without skipping a beat, you ordered yourself the best thing on the menu, and Carol the worst. She looked as if she was going to protest, but at that point, the waitress had walked away. And all you did was sit there and smirk.
The tension in the room was not sexual. The hatred you felt in your heart for her and the simultaneous need to kiss her and have her kiss you back was not sexual, in any way shape or form.
"So." You promptly exclaimed, in the most positive voice that you could muster.
"Yes," Carol responded, deadlocking her eyes onto yours.
The longer you stared into her eyes the more love you felt. You lost yourself in the depths of her eyes as if you were Alice just entering wonderland. The smile lines surrounding her lips were faded and it seemed as if she hadn't cracked a grin in decades. Her fair hair fell into her eyes, and she quickly brushed it out of the way with one unmanicured finger.
"Why the fuck are we doing this?" She asks, avoiding your gaze.
"What do you mean?" You counter, plastering on another one of your on-brand fake smiles.
"Forcing ourselves to sit in this hell-ish place just for the courtesy of Natasha."
You tilt your head slightly and regain eye contact, "oh, so you want to leave?" You politely ask, knowing all to well the stir that you would get from Nat if you left now.
"No, of course not." She said, rolling her eyes. "But, why would she ever think that I would ever want to be around you for longer than the 5 seconds that are already peeling off my eyes."
"It's nice to see how kind you are to the people around you." You respond, attempting to be as harmful as she was even though you were internally hurt.
"But now that you mention it, I'm realizing how shitty it is that I have to engage in conversation with someone as horrible as you." You winced, and you were positive that she didn't notice either, because she was doing the same.
"What are your powers then, fixing computers?" She mocked you with a smile "oh, the world is ending. Look, someone to get rid of a faulty line on my phone."
"Oh yeah, I forgot that you were a dinosaur. I'm sorry, we don't use phones bolted to the wall in national security." You exclaimed. You wouldn't usually be so harsh, but her words were causing you to lash out.
"At least I can hold up in a fistfight." She said, putting on another mask of a hollow smile.
"I can hold up in a fistfight just fine, but can you hold up with a speakerphone button on an iPhone?" Ah yes, another hollow shot at her prehistoric days.
"You know, for someone how talks all this talk, I'm shocked that you can't actually do anything. Oh wait, I'm not. Sorry, Princess, you're all bark and no bite."
"Excuse me, I forget I was talking to someone who flies around in a space-suit and mohawk." Yet again another fake smile.
The two of you continued to bicker for another few minutes until the waitress comes over with your food.
"I can't believe that you would do such an ignorant f-"
"Hi, I have your food." A woman with a positive attitude and a braid crown places your meals in front of you.
You quickly stopped your argument and the both of you put on yet another fake smile to make it seem like you weren't two seconds away from causing an avengers level threat.
"Thank you so much."
"Really, we really appreciate it."
The second the woman walked away you were back at each other's throats.
But, somehow, Carol was still gorgeous all the while she was yelling at you and eating a shrimp on top of a salad drenched in vinegar.
"Seriously, you're so incompetent." You quickly burst out when she notices you staring.
"Maybe you wouldn't worry so much about me if you were actually doing your job." She responds, rolling her eyes.
"I am sweetie; I'm just good enough at it to be able to pay attention to your uselessness."
"You're too kind." She exclaims as she reaches for a napkin that you quickly pull away from her.
"What I find especially depressing about you is that you will never grow. You're the same person. You're stuck in a box. You will never be better than what you are now. And what you are is shitty." She looks up at you, " Princess ."
You pull back from your meal in shock. You couldn't believe that she had said something like that to you. It pointed out everything you had ever worried about yourself.
"I can't believe you. Why are you so relentlessly horrible to me? What have I done to you? I get when you take cheap shots. I take cheap shots all the time. I don't hate you. Why do you hate me?! I don't hate you! I love you!"
Carol freezes up. Everyone in Chili's looks at you. You were screaming. And you had just told Carol you loved her. You told her you loved her. You loved her.
"What?" She says in a meek voice.
"I'm so sorry Carol, I was just-" She kisses you.
Carol kisses you.
Carol puts her lips on yours and kisses you.
And you kiss you back.
She's leaning over the table and knocked both your plates off the table and knocked you drinks over. You feel the liquid on your knees as you climb onto the table and place yourself on top of it. You kiss and you kiss until the rest of the world is null and void.
You only pull away for air, and when you're doing so Carol whispers a careful "I'm sorry."
You keep on kissing and kissing.
"I love you, I love you, I'm sorry, I love you." Muttered between you.
You finally pull away and stare into each other's eyes for a minute, basking in the beauty of her blue orbs.
"I feel god in this Chili's tonight." You breathlessly exclaim.
She laughs a beautiful, glorious laugh, and then leans in to kiss you again.