Chapter Text
Natasha has an entire speech planned, and she’s ready, so ready that there’s no way that this could take a turn for the worse or go wrong.
She’s just hoping so desperately though, that it won’t go wrong. Because as much as she prepares and practices the speech in her head and tries her hardest to cover the bruises all over her body for the last time, there’s such a scarily high chance that this can go wrong. And Natasha really doesn’t want it to, because it’s Wanda and as much as she likes to think she’s an independent person, Wanda’s someone she really needs on her side for this.
It’s safe to say that Natasha has been absolutely freaking out, just quietly, for the past four days, looking up pages and pages of advice and tips. And most of them say that there will be some friends, primarily those who are close to you, that won’t be able to handle the pressure and possibly remove themselves from your life until the whole ordeal passes.
It scares her that Wanda might do that; she’s not really sure if she can handle this without her.
She instinctively pulls down her sleeves and checks her face in the mirror before she realises she constantly looks like crap these days; she goes to answer the door to a fucking doe-eyed as ever, Wanda Maximoff. She doesn’t realise she’s holding in a long breath until Wanda said ‘hello’ and suddenly Natasha can’t form words.
It scares her that this would be the last time things would ever be as simple and worry-free as they were.
Natasha finally stumbles out, thin-lipped mouth and all, “Hey, how’re you going?”
Wanda just looks so happy and full of life, and Natasha is trying her hardest to try and plaster on a smile as the Sokovian responds, “Yeah, I’m awesome. God, it’s a beautiful day, right? You wanna go get some lunch after?”
Natasha genuinely feels her heart deflate just a little, her joints are achy, and her temples are pounding and yet again, she feels as though she is going to throw up, ‘Wanda really doesn’t deserve this,’ she thinks to herself.
She doesn’t want to burst the joyful normalcy that Wanda has built for herself. So, she lies a little because she knows neither of them will want lunch after this anyway. “Sure, sounds good, and yeah, it’s a really nice lately. Loving this sun.” It even sounds weak coming out of her mouth, the intention’s there, but it’s all muted and wrong, Wanda notices. Of course, she does.
“You alright? You sound kinda weird,” Wanda says, taking a seat on Natasha’s couch and immediately leaning forward towards her.
Well, this is it, Natasha. There’s your opening.
So, Natasha takes a seat on the couch, as far away from Wanda as she can to begin with and decides a little better of it and shuffles closer to her so their knees are only inches apart. “Ok, so um, I need to tell you something. It’s something really, uh, big, I guess, and I’m really not sure how to fucking say it at all,” Natasha’s hands are shaking so badly that she shoves them between her knees and pushes them tight together. But her jaw is shaking just as badly, and it makes her words come out unsure and unsteady.
Wanda immediately backtracks, “Woah now, alright. Just chucking it out there, you’re not about to tell me you’re in love with me, right? Because I don’t think i'm emotionally equipped to handle that right now,” Wanda’s smirking a little; she’s joking, trying to make Natasha feel better because, of course Wanda knows that it’s something that’s really worrying Natasha.
And that’s when Natasha starts to feel dizzy, like the world’s dropping out from underneath her, piece by piece.
She can’t do this. If that’s the worst that Wanda thinks, then she can’t do this to her. She can’t fucking do this. This is too much. There should be an automated service for this, like a banana-o-gram but a lot more shitty and depressing.
She takes two deep breaths, visualising the oxygen spreading like a blue-hot wildfire through her veins; it calms her enough to look Wanda in the eyes and say in a voice far more confident than she’ll ever really be, “Wanda, I have cancer.”
Natasha would never have thought it could actually happen outside of a movie studio and special effects, but all of Wanda’s colour fell from her face as she stared at Natasha for a few very long moments.
Wanda’s voice is so tiny and timid when she asks because she already knows, “This is a joke, right? Like a really, really elaborate joke,” Natasha can’t speak because there’s a lump in her throat that hadn’t shifted for days.
And then Wanda starts to fall apart; she feels like her insides are being pulled out from every pore, everything’s backwards, and her brain isn’t working; there’s static noise all around her ears, and she feels the heels of her palms in her eyes as she feels the all too familiar sting of hot tears beginning to blind her.
Natasha can only stare as Wanda takes a moment to herself, her head shaking slightly as though she’s trying to tell the universe 'no’.
Wanda lifts her head; she finds Natasha’s hand and grabs on so tight she can’t feel her own fingers, and she can’t look Natasha in the eyes because that’s too much, it’s too much. She can’t feel; she can’t anything, there’s nothing in her cavities but a heavy silence that’s spread over the house.
Natasha silently mutters, “Fuck Wanda, I’m so, so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
Wanda is shaking her head a little more violently as she finally looks Natasha in the eye and opens her mouth to say something, but no sound comes out, there are so many questions, but none of them seem coherent or fair to Natasha and probably not what Natasha wants to hear right now.
Wanda is so grateful for when Natasha whispers, “Do you want me just to tell you everything and you tell me when it gets too much, and I’ll stop, I’ll stop right away. I, god Wanda, I’m so sorry; you don’t deserve this.” Natasha’s voice wavers on the last bit.
Wanda makes a slight, guttural noise of anger at the apology and squeezes Natasha’s hand in an effort to convey that, yes, she’d like Natasha to just speak.
So, she does.
“Ok, alright, so I’ve been feeling shitty for a while, you know that. Like I always felt like I was going to puke, and I’m always tired, but I started getting bruises all over me, like on my stomach and everything,” Natasha’s voice is near nothing above a whisper. She lifts her shirt to show Wanda several bruises blooming in bright colours along her abdomen. Wanda sucks in a tiny amount of air, and she only wants to cover Natasha up and hold her with a fierce burn of protectiveness until this all goes away.
Natasha pulls her shirt down and continues quickly, “So I, uh, kind of knew something was wrong then, and I looked up the symptoms, and I went to the clinic and told them what I thought I had; turns out I was right. It’s, um, leukaemia, actually. The one type I’ve got is called acute lymphoblastic, which is why it came on real fast and stuff.”
Natasha takes a deep breath because this is the speech she wanted to say, just an information dump as quickly as possible; it’s less painful that way. “So, they did a few tests, and they called me back in the next day, and it all happened really fast; I got referred to a doctor at NYC Medical Centre because apparently she’s a specialist for blood cancers or something, and yeah, she did a few tests a couple of days ago. That’s why I was a bit missing in action, she had to do a biopsy, and I felt like crap after, and it hurt like a bitch, and I didn’t want to worry you before it was…serious,” Natasha realises that she’s freaking Wanda out a little.
Wanda’s just staring blankly at her, and Natasha’s hands clasped together, it seems, without breathing much. So, she wraps up quickly, “Um, alright, so now I’ve got a treatment plan, and it’s like an indefinite number of chemo sessions, once a week, but my doctor says I should be going for no more than around three months, which wow, sounds like a long time coming out of my mouth, and I start all of that, uh, tomorrow actually.” Natasha tries to swallow down the lump.
Wanda looks so pale and childlike as her eyes are slightly widened and broken, again she tries to open her mouth to say something, but she closes it quickly and licks her lips before she blurts out in a stutter, “What’s, what’s the uh, the you know, the prognosis? What’s the chance of…fuck,” Wanda drops her head and breathes deeply, and Natasha imagines herself being transported to another alternate universe because that was the last question she wanted or, to be honest, needed to hear.
Her voice cracks on the first syllable, and the first tear escapes out of the corner of her eye; she wipes it away quickly, “Um, well, I think my doctor was saying that they probably caught it a little later than what’s uh, ideal? And I’m an adult, so like it fucking sucks for me anyway, but she gave me a rough figure of about 25% rate of, um, survival. Which is pretty low, like, I’m not sure, but lower than usual, I think.”
It seems to be the breaking point for Wanda as she slips her hand out of Natasha’s and pulls it roughly through her long brunette tresses, pushing herself up quickly from the couch, starting to pace up towards Natasha’s office space and back to awards the couch, and then she starts yelling, hands clasped behind her head.
And it seems as though she can’t stop, “Shit. No, no, this can’t be happening, no, this can’t happen to you. You’re young and like so super healthy, and this is supposed to happen to shitty people, not, you know…you,” and then Wanda begins to form wracking sobs that escape from her throat and she grasps at her chest and almost growls in frustration.
This is not how it was supposed to go. The Sokovian continues, “No! They must have gotten it wrong; it has to be wrong. Please tell me, they had to have gotten it wrong, right?” Wanda stops and turns to Natasha, who’s still sitting on the couch, hugging herself and staring at Wanda with a look in her eyes that’s so guilty that Wanda wants to erase it from her memory.
“No, I don’t think they got it wrong, Wan. Please, just, just calm down, please, don’t stress yourself out.”
Wanda almost scoffs, but the tears escaping now down her cheeks stop her, “Don’t stress myself out? My best friend has cancer, and there’s a 75% chance she will fucking die!” And it’s then that Wanda truly realises it, as she says again in a thick voice, “My best friend has cancer…I, I need to get out of here; I’m just, I gotta go.” So, Wanda grabs her keys off the counter, and even though she doesn’t properly look at Natasha, she hears the slight choking sound she makes and her soul aches, but she’s gone before Natasha can even say a word.
It’s 8:34 at night and seven hours since Wanda stormed out, and she calls Natasha.
Natasha is lying on the couch, wrapped up in a blanket and her eyes drooping dangerously, swollen and red from the ten minutes of crying she let herself have after Wanda left; her phone rings loudly over the soft blare of the TV.
She panics only a little when she sees Wanda’s name flash across the glaring screen. “Hey,” she doesn’t know what else to say.
“Hey,” Wanda says, her voice is small and guarded. “How’re you doing?”
Natasha smirks into the phone, “Been better, if I’m honest.”
Wanda huffs out a small laugh, and Natasha is glad because that how she meant it, she pauses slightly before a tentative, “Me or the cancer?”
Natasha can’t tell if she’s shocked or glad that Wanda’s already this comfortable with it, “Uh, bit of both. Not that you made me feel shitty, I just feel shitty about the whole situation, and I’m just upset that you know, you’re upset.”
“I mean, I wanna say I’m not upset, so you’re not sad, but I’m, you know, I can’t; I’m not sure what to…I’m sorry,” Wanda trails off slightly, and Natasha can hear her take the phone away from her mouth, and there is distant rustling and a small sob and sniff. It makes Natasha’s gut feel hot and uncomfortable, her eyes prickling as well.
“Wanda? You there?”
There’s a little more rustling, and Wanda says, “Yeah, yes, I’m here. Sorry, I just…you know. I don’t want to believe it, you know?”
“Yeah, I get it. Trust me.” Natasha says, a small and melancholic smile on her face.
Wanda immediately freaks out, “I’m being like insanely selfish. Here I am whining to you, and I’m not even the one with the….” And Natasha can practically hear Wanda’s hand gesture following the quick silence.
Natasha immediately responds, “No, please don’t say that. You’re allowed to feel whatever you want, and this fucking sucks for everyone, not just me, ok?” Natasha takes a breath because she needs to say it, to put it out there, “Your feelings are just as legitimate as anyone else’s, don’t feel bad, please. Just you calling me back and actually, like, being around is all I need; you don’t need to be strong, alright?”
Wanda, on the other end, is clutching at her forehead, and she fights down sobs, burying her head in her free hand, unable to say a word. She’s imagining her chest expanding so much that it bursts open, and everything she’s trying to suppress right now comes spilling out in an almighty wave of heated emotion.
It all feels so much right now, she’s had hours to process it all, but it doesn’t feel real. Like there’s not really the impending force of grief upon them, Wanda tries her hardest not to think about it.
She feels like she needs to be strong for the Russian because as much as Natasha thinks she can totally handle herself, all Wanda wants is for her to know that she’s there for her. That’s all she wants, is for Natasha to know how much she means to her, that while Natasha is sick, so is Wanda.
Wanda finally struggles out, “I do, Natasha, I do have to be, at least a little. You’re so…you’re so important to me.”
Natasha has to take a deep breath before replying, “I know, I know that I really do. And you know you’re the same.”
“Yeah, I know,” Wanda wipes at her face before pushing forward, “Right so you said tomorrow you start, right?”
“Uh, yes, a ten o'clock session, it goes for five hours. Which is a long time and completely unnecessary if you ask me.”
Wanda snorts and is so enamoured by Natasha it makes her want to pull her hair out, “Completely agree. Do you, um, do you want someone to come with you? Or a lift or something else?”
And this is what the redhead was dreading; she needs to be able to handle this whole cancer thing by herself for as long as possible.
She’ll be fine by herself up until the point where she genuinely needs other people’s help, “No, Wan, don’t worry about it. It’s only like a thirty-minute drive to the centre I’m at, and they have awesome drugs and stuff now, so I should be alright to drive home after.”
Wanda is wary, but she won’t deny Natasha anything at this stage, “Alright, but you promise to call me if you need me. I’ll be free all day. Wait, have you told Clint?”
“I’ll call you, promise. And yeah, Jesus, funny story, actually. He knew before I did, I think. He started noticing the bruising, and I think he looked up the symptoms because he kept bugging me about it for like three days, and then I looked it up. I texted him when I made the appointment, so he sat outside in the car park during the tests and waited for me. I asked for a copy of the results for when he gave me a lift when they called me back into the hospital to tell me, so I didn’t have to tell him when I got back out to the car.” Natasha laughs bitterly at that last sentence.
“Oh, alright,” Wanda says because she wonders briefly how badly Clint took it, “Why’d you wait so long to tell me?” It slips out before she can even think about what she’s saying, “Sorry, that’s not even near my business, sorry. You shouldn’t answer that.”
Natasha really laughs before saying quietly, you can feel the genuine smile through the phone, “Cool your jets, Wan. You must think very highly of yours-”
“No, no, I didn’t mean it lik-”
“Seriously, calm your shit. It just took me a long time to figure out what to say to you…you; you’re different. You make me really think about everything, so I thought you at least deserved me to have it together a little before I told you.”
Wanda’s never felt so touched in her entire life.
Then Natasha starts again, “Not that your ego wasn’t big enough, god, you know you’re probably the most powerful.”
They both laugh, and Wanda feels like she’s floating because this whole situation feels unreal, but the conversation is so easy and as fluent as usual. It’s like nothing’s changed, but there’s an undertone that’s lying directly beneath the surface.
Natasha is quiet for a few moments as Wanda’s laugh trails off, “You alright?” Wanda asks.
There’s rustling of blankets on Natasha’s end, “Yeah, I’m just, just a little tired.”
“You should get some sleep, then.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“No worries, just looking out for you while stating the undeniably obvious.”
Natasha laughs a little weakly, and it pulls at Wanda’s heart with a tiny spasm, “I’m going to hang up, and you’re going to get some sleep, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Ok?”
“Sounds like a date,” Natasha says, already lifting herself up from the couch to move to her bedroom.
“Thanks for calling Wanda; you know, it, uh, means a lot.”
“I’d never not call you.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Good. See ya tomorrow.”
“Talk to you later…Night.”
“Goodnight.” Wanda says quietly, torn between not ever wanting to let this phone call go and allowing Natasha some last bit of sleep.
She hangs up, though, and she realises she is no longer her own priority—all that crap about putting yourself first, complete and utter bullshit.