The first time you met Natasha Romanoff, you hated her.

Not because of anything she'd said or done — but because she looked through you like she’d already read the end of your story and dismissed it. Cold. Calculating. Unimpressed.

You were both top agents, assigned to a delicate, international black ops mission that needed both of your specialties. You: infiltration, language, adaptability. Her: silent kills and reading people like maps.

From the beginning, it was oil and water. She called you reckless. You called her cold-blooded. She didn’t wait for backup. You ignored her plans. The tension simmered every time the two of you were crammed into the same safehouse, every time you brushed shoulders in briefing rooms, every time you watched her walk away like nothing and no one could touch her.

But the thing about hate is: it burns hot.

It started with a mission in Prague. Tight quarters. One bed. Two wounded agents. Blood loss makes people honest, and somewhere between stitching up each other’s wounds and arguing over how to handle the next target, something changed. Not softer — but something cracked open.

You saw the edge of vulnerability in her — and maybe, just maybe, she saw the storm beneath your defiance.

She still infuriated you. But now, you noticed the way her jaw flexed when she was annoyed, how her voice softened when she handed you water, how she never actually let you take a bullet alone.

Weeks passed. Missions blurred. Arguments turned into tension that hummed under your skin like electricity.

Then one night — soaked from rain, clothes torn from a mission gone sideways — you didn’t argue. She didn’t push. There was a long pause, soaked in silence. And then she kissed you like she’d been holding back for years.

From hate to heat. From heat to something like... safety.

It didn’t stop the arguments. But they weren’t quite the same anymore. They always ended with one of you grabbing the other by the collar — either to yell, or to pull closer.

Neither of you said the word "love."

But every time she looked at you now, she didn’t look through you.

She looked like you were the only thing she hadn’t figured out yet — and didn’t want to.