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It probably wasn’t what Steve had in mind when he’d asked Natasha to keep an eye on Bucky, but to be honest she didn’t think Bucky needed a babysitter while Steve was out of town.
“It’s just for a few days.” Steve kept repeating on his way out. He was trying to comfort Bucky, but it was really more himself that needed the reassurance.
“You know I did fine on my own before you found me in Bucharest, I think I can handle a week.” Bucky had all but shoved his friend toward the door.
He opened his mouth to argue just how fine Bucky really was but Natasha interrupted before the bickering could begin.
“I’ve got things handled here,” she told him, looping her arm through his and guiding him out. “There’s more than enough Avengers now to deal with anything that comes up and I promise to keep you updated. Unless you think I can’t manage my team?””
“Of course not!” Sometimes a soft touch was required with her friend, and sometimes it was a little bit of emotional manipulation. He was so easy sometimes. He glanced over his shoulder at Bucky, walking behind them with a small grin. “Promise you’ll let me know if anything happens?” The Bucky Barnes focus of his concern was implicit, but Natasha was an expert in reading people. Even if she wasn’t, she knew Steve better than almost anyone and these days his main concern was Bucky.
“Promise.” She held up her hand, scouts honor, and tapped his nose like she did with Cooper. “Now go have fun on your boys trip with Tony and Sam, and try not to start any trouble.” Bucky laughed behind them.
“It’s not a boys trip.”
They watched him get into the cab and that was that. It turned out to be a pretty uneventful week, actually. No large scale disasters or overt attempts at global domination. It was all just paperwork and training.
While Bucky had yet to join them in the field, he had taken well to working with the team in combat training and drills. If he was having trouble adjusting, he didn’t let on. As if any of them were well adjusted adults in the first place. The fact that Clint was probably the most normal person on the team couldn’t mean anything good. So, for a formerly brainwashed assassin in his 90s Barnes was doing pretty well. So well, in fact, that Natasha felt something akin to jealousy over it. While Bucky had seamlessly found a place with the team, she was still struggling with resentment and distrust after the fallout of the Accords.
“Hey,” Bucky’s halfway through her door with a box of doughnuts when he stops short at the sight of her mountain of paperwork. Back at SHIELD they had people for this kind of thing, but now with all the new legislation the responsibility falls on the Avengers shoulders. Incident reports, damage reports, requisitions and expenditures. Any time they cross a border there’s a new report she has to file. They even have to keep a written record of who is sent into the field and for how long, because now it’s considered to be an actual job, with an hourly wage and income tax and everything.
She’d gotten an early start that morning, and no doubt looks like a lunatic with how he’s looking at her.
In or out she almost says, but that would be rude and he’s got a tray with coffee in it. If one of them isn’t for her she might throw her stapler at him. “Morning” she greets instead, an edge of stress in her overly bright tone.
He closes the door behind him with his foot when he enters. Tries to find a safe place to set his box of pastries. There’s precious little space but they make room by stacking some of the clutter.
For a moment Natasha feels embarrassed over the state of her office. She’s usually much more organized. Steve and Bucky’s place is meticulously tidy, she’d even taken a peek into their fridge to see if they just hid messes away like she’s seen the kids do, but even that had been freakishly clean.
He offers one of the cardboard cups to her with one of those charming Bucky Barnes smiles.
The coffee is exactly how she likes it, Natasha is surprised to find. Barnes has been paying more attention to her than she’d thought.
Bucky takes the seat across from her and stretches his legs out. She wonders how much of his apparent ease these days is an act and how much is him actually feeling comfortable around them. When they’d found him all those months ago his body language had read like a frightened animal, always looking over his shoulder for the next threat. He had tried to make himself as small and unnoticeable as possible.
“What?” He says with his mouth around a jelly filled doughnut. There’s powdered sugar on his face. You’d never look at the man as he is now and think he’s the Winter Soldier.
“Nothing.” Natasha smiles to herself. Either he’s working her or he’s hopelessly unaware of how adorable he is. “Thanks for the breakfast.”
When he smiles back at her he’s got a mouth full of doughnut, his cheeks puffed out like a hamster.
Adorable.
“What’s all this anyway?” Nodding to the stack of paperwork she’s been slowly working through.
Natasha sighs. Gesturing with her cup to the different piles she points out each in turn. “Mission reports, schedules, requisition forms and budgets, and those” she waves at the largest of the stacks “are the damage reports.”
He made a face at the last. “We have to pay for the damage made when we protect people from supervillains?”
“Some of it.” She deflated. “There’s a whole process. Stark used to pay for a lot of the rebuilding, but things are more complicated now. Sometimes the bad guys have to pay damages but when its robots or aliens they can’t exactly be charged.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
Bucky reaches out and picks up some of the papers. Leafing through them he offers to help her with it.
“I used to do the books for my dads store.” He explains quietly. “Was even going to school to be an accountant before.” He’s never mentioned his family or his life before he was taken by Hydra to her. If Steve mentions someone or tells a story about the Commandos, Bucky will go along with it or give his own input. But Bucky doesn’t bring these things up.
“Thanks. Honestly, I could really use the help, just don’t tell anyone I said that.” Natasha responds softly.
“As long as you don’t tell anyone I was going to be an accountant, both our reputations will remain intact.”
Bucky looks up at her then with a soft smile and winks. Actually winks! Who even was this man?
She rolls her eyes at him and tosses him a pen.
“Get to work Barnes.”
That night she dreams they’re in her office again, only this time he leans over her desk and kisses her. Dramatically sweep everything off the surface before he lifts her and plants her on the glass tabletop with a wicked grin. Hands roving over each other as he kisses her neck Natasha gasps –
She wakes aroused and irritated. Barnes, even if he’s handsome and funny and can match her shot for shot on the range, is utterly off limits.
It’s fine, she tells herself, probably not even about him. She’s just sexually frustrated. She will just go about things as usual, ignore the attraction until it passes.
The thing with Wanda was that she had a lot of power but little control. They’d seen the consequences of that in Lagos, and that was on Steve and herself. They were the team leaders and they shouldn’t have put Wanda in a situation she wasn’t ready for.
The younger woman had taken Natasha’s choice to sign the Accords and fight alongside Tony personally. Even now that they were all working together again she was still carrying some anger over it. Natasha could see it in the way she would avoid working one on one with her, how her posture would change when Natasha entered the room.
It was unfortunate but there wasn’t anything Natasha could do about it. What’s done is done she had told herself, and Wanda was entitled to feel how she did. She worried how it might effect their work in the field though. What could happen if she lost control of her anger. Which is why she had decided they needed to spar. That way she could assess Wanda’s hand to hand capabilities and Wanda could let out some of her anger.
The gym facilities at the compound were high tech – because Tony. The best equipment money could buy. It was a far cry from the empty rooms with their propaganda posters staring down at her that Natasha had trained in growing up.
Wanda is already there when Natasha arrives, stiffening when she sees her. She does try to hide it, sweet girl that she is, but nothing escapes the Black Widows notice.
“Let’s see what Steve’s been teaching you.” She says to Wanda, leading her over to an open area with mats on the floor.
There’s a moments hesitation before she follows. Steve had taken on training Wanda in hand to hand combat and he’s done well enough. From what he’s told her she knows Wanda has improved, but when she gets frustrated she’s still prone to falling back on her powers.
“Try to hit me. No powers.” She says to the younger woman. Natasha faces her head on, her limbs relaxed.
She’s still hesitating, unsure of herself. Unsure of Natasha too, probably.
Standing within reach of each other Natasha can see Wanda’s small frown, the crease between her eyebrows. When she throws her first punch it’s easily dodged with a twist of her hips, left leg moving back in a smooth arch to keep her center of balance – effortless. The second Natasha ducks under, the next she blocks with her own arm, knocking Wanda’s away with little force. So busy trying to land a hit, she doesn’t notice Natasha move to hook her leg with her foot and knock it out from under her.
“What the hell!?” Wanda lands on her knee, immediately jumps back up to her feet.
Good, Natasha thinks, she isn’t letting it stop her.
“Use your legs, your feet. There’s more ways to attack than by throwing punches.” She tells her. Steve’s been neglecting her footwork, but he’s a brawler with enough physical strength to make up for it, stubborn enough not to be moved with the super soldier serum to support him.
“Let’s go again.” She says.
The kick Wanda swings at her waist from the right is caught at the ankle, which Natasha tugs to throw her off. She’s unused to using her legs in a fight and it throws off her center of gravity. Wanda wobbles on the foot still on the ground. Natasha drops the leg and reaches out to steady her.
There’s a moment where Natasha thinks Wanda will flinch away from her. It’s an awful feeling, but it passes.
“We’ll work on it.”
They work on it for the rest of the afternoon. Natasha adjusting Wanda’s stance and teaching her knee strikes.
When Wanda leaves she’s tired and covered in sweat, she sends Natasha a small smile at the door.
Feeling as though she’s made some progress in rebuilding their relationship, Natasha just laughs when Bucky saunters over from where he’s been hitting the heavy bag.
“You’re like the cruelest gym teacher ever.” He comments with a laugh.
“I can get the dodge balls out if you want.” Despite spending the better part of the afternoon training with Wanda, Natasha isn’t the least bit tired.
The thin t-shirt he wears clings to him, damp with sweat. She pointedly does not look at the way it sticks to his chest and abs.
“I’ll pass. But if you’re looking for a sparring partner, I’d be glad to help you with that.”
With Steve out of town she hasn’t had her regular sparring partner around. She had accepted that she would be on her own for the week, stuck with lighter sparring with the others or working out on her own. But sparring the Winter Soldier would definitely be more of a challenge.
It would also be playing with fire.
Natasha’s smile is damn near predatory. “Sounds like fun.”
“Dramatic.” Natasha comments, her own breath coming out in pants. Beside her on the mats is Bucky, laying with his right arm thrown over his eyes. He’d groaned on his way down, claiming he couldn’t go on.
He’s cute. Not that she’s going to tell him that. She drops down to sit and stretch her legs, muscles wonderfully tired.
“Don’t think anyone’s ever been dropped me that hard before.” He turns his head toward her with a tired smile. His chest heaves with every breath.
The way he says it – like he’s in awe – sends a little shiver of something up her back. She’s not usually one to be so affected by compliments, but, well – he was kind of a legend in her line of work.
She reaches out to pat his arm, winds up smacking him in the chest with her hand instead when he moves. “Well I can’t remember the last time I got to go all out like that. We should do that again sometime.” Her hand is warm when she pulls it back.
“Definitely.” Bucky says with a breathless smile that she returns without thinking.
By the time Friday rolls around, Natasha is just about done with the week. It’s not that it had been difficult. There had been precious little action, the one time they’d had to go into the field had been pointless, the situation being resolved by the time they got there. She’d still had to file the paperwork though. She’s considering going out after work and finding herself some trouble to get into when Bucky joins her at the elevator.
“I could use a drink.” He announces, looking over at her with his hands in his pockets. “You look like you could use one too.”
Natasha huffs out a laugh. He’s not wrong.
Bucky looks just as keyed up as she is. Usually he’s pretty calm, but there are times like this when he doesn’t seem able to sit still. He fidgets, tapping a beat out against his thigh or shifting his feet.
“Are you offering?”
There’s that ridiculous smile that she finds so charming. The one in the old photos of him during the war. The one that he doesn’t use very often these days. It sends a thrill through her that he smiles at her like that. Makes her feel proud that she’s managed to earn it.
“I am if you’re accepting.”
She tells herself not to get so excited.
It’s not a date. There hadn’t been any mention of a date. It was just two colleagues meeting at a club after work to have a drink after a long week. It was a totally normal occurrence in other people’s lives. Normal people. She could be normal for a night.
For once she is going out as herself, not as a cover, but as just Natasha. It’s been a long time since she’s had reason to get dressed up for something other than a job.
Her outfit for the night is carefully selected: a short, slinky dress in a dark grey with a shiny thread woven into the material that shimmers silver when it catches the light; modest strappy heels; a long necklace that loops around her neck and plunges into her cleavage. Her short hair she curls and teases into an intentionally messy style that bounces with her movements. Her makeup she keeps simple, smoky eyeshadow and a shiny lip gloss that should last the night. There is, of course, a small ceramic knife strapped high up on her thigh, because Natasha doesn’t go anywhere without a weapon. A short jacket finishes off the ensemble.
The music is so loud that Natasha doesn’t hear the initial greeting when Bucky finds her sitting at the bar chatting with the bartender. He eyes her up and down discreetly and she does the same, pleasantly surprised by his choice of tight-fitting jeans, satiny button-up and grey waist coat. It carefully balances the line between formal and informal. She’s never seen him clean shaven before, has to fight the temptation to reach out and run her fingers over his jaw.
She has to lean in close and shout for him to hear her. “You clean up nice.” She tells him, laying her hand on his shoulder.
There’s that smile again. He almost looks bashful.
“I’d say the same to you, but you always look nice.” Normally she would roll her eyes at a line like that, but Bucky manages to sound honest when he says it. He was such a ladies man, Steve had told her once. She can see that side of him now, as he leans in to ask her what she’s drinking. He orders himself a drink that’s just as colourful as hers. Natasha snickers. The Winter Soldier drinking a fruity cocktail with an umbrella in it. What some people wouldn’t give to see a picture of that.
They go from their brightly coloured cocktails to boilermakers, find themselves a nice little table in a corner where they can see most of the club. Bucky seems to have set himself a goal of working through all the mixed drinks he’s missed out on in the last seventy odd years.
“What’s the weirdest cover you’ve ever had?” Bucky leans in to ask over the music.
“Once,” she laughs into her drink “I was a fortune teller.”
“Bullshit” he snorts. “How did that go?”
“Pretty well, actually. A lot of it is just cold reading, that and confidence. Sound like you know what you’re talking about and tell them what you want to hear, and you can convince some people of anything.
“Here” she says, “I’ll show you. Give me your hand.”
“Are you going to read my palm?” He asks with a light laugh. Wiping his hand on his jeans before placing it in hers.
Natasha brushes off the tingling that she feels where their skin touches. “Hush.” She demands haughtily.
With her free hand she runs her fingers over his palm. His hands are rough with calluses, his fingers instinctively curling when her nail runs along the creases in his skin. “This here is your life line,” she tells him sagely “ah, and here, this line represents love. I can see you’ve lived a long life, faced many struggles, and that there is great love in your life. You will face more struggles, but they can be overcome with the strength of this love.”
“Wow,” Bucky says, face amused “even better than a fortune cookie.”
“You’re lucky number is 4.” Natasha informs him in the same knowing tone she’d used when studying his palm, then she grins “shots?”
Bucky’s fingers trail along her hand when he gets up to head back to the bar.
Natasha loves to dance. She has always loved to dance. The music may change, and the moves, but in every club she had ever been in, from the discothèques in Europe to the crowded night clubs in L.A., the energy was the same. It had always made her feel free.
The DJ plays a remix of a song she’s heard on the radio a lot recently, almost turning it into a new song altogether. She can feel the bass in her chest as the crowd bounces along in time to the beat. Her hands in the air, Natasha turns, throws her head back and laughs. Beside her she sees that Bucky is laughing along with her, hair falling into his face as they dance. He takes her hand, guides her into a tight spin in the limited space.
There’s hardly any skill to the dancing they join the crowd in. Nothing like the swing dancing in the dance halls that he would have frequented, but Bucky adapts quickly to the change in dance style.
It’s like the world outside disappears, and all that exists is the music, the strobing lights, the bodies pressed close together in the crowd. Dancing has always been an escape for her.
Just like in sparring, they move together as if they’ve been doing this for years. Natasha lifts her arms to wrap around his neck, at the same time Bucky’s hands go to her waist. He lifts and she jumps into it, using the momentum to spin around him. Unlike the other times she’s pulled a similar move on him, she doesn’t try to flip him or put him in a lock with her legs. Her front slides against him as he lowers her back to the ground. She can feel the hardness of his muscles, the way he tenses when her chest presses against him.
Natasha knows she’s playing with fire, but she can’t quite bring herself to care anymore. She’s having too much fun.
When she turns and leans back she feels his arms wrapping around her. His fingers press into the material of her dress, pull her even closer. There are precious few layers that separate them as she presses down and he pushes up and they meet with a friction that sets her nerves on fire. She can only just hear as Bucky gasps over her shoulder. As his grip tightens on her.
“Natasha,” Bucky’s voice is low and rough in her ear. She can feel his every breath, his heart beats rapidly against her back.
They’re at a tipping point, she knows, there’s no going back to the carefully built friendship they’ve had up until now. And he’s asking if she’s sure without so many words. So she twists a bit in his arms, pulls his head down into a kiss and dives headlong past the point of no return.
They bump into the back of the sofa as they make their way, laughing, to his bedroom. Bucky’s fault, she decides, its his place, he should be in charge of guiding them to bed. She shrugs out of her jacket on the way there when he brushes his fingers insistently under the material. They leave it on the floor where it falls.
They had laughed and grabbed at each other on the walk to the apartment, Bucky fumbling with the keys while she ran her hand down his abdomen.
Natasha, having decided that Bucky is exactly the trouble she’s looking for tonight, paws at him when he crowds her against the door. His breath hitches when she creeps her cold fingers under his belt. He’s been visibly aroused since the club. Under other circumstances he might have tried to hide it, as it is, he leans into her and lets her feel him as he presses against her stomach through their clothes.
Too many clothes, she thinks. He’s still fully dressed. It’s entirely unfair.
It’s not a large room, she only has to walk him back a few steps until he’s sitting on the bed. Natasha climbs onto him, straddles his lap.
Her kisses are as greedy as his are eager. Together they rid him of the waistcoat, then his shirt. When she runs her fingertips over the scarring where metal joins skin he shivers. She presses her mouth to the area and he sighs.
“It’s sensitive.” Bucky explains. “It doesn’t bother you?”
The arm, he means.
In answer Natasha takes his metal hand in hers and moves it up her thigh, guides it under the hem of her dress. The metal, though warm, leaves goosebumps in its wake. He stops his fingertips when they touch her panties. With a deep groan he slips his right hand into her hair again and pulls her in for a deep kiss. Steady metal fingers run along the edge of her underwear to grasp her ass.
When he falls backward onto his bed her pulls her along with him. There’s a rush to get him out of his jeans. They both fumble with the zipper, Bucky makes a relieved sound when they get it down and free him from the restricting denim.
The way he wiggles on his bed to get his pants down his legs without dislodging her from his lap makes her laugh. She laughs again when they get caught on his shoes.
“Oh, come on!” Bucky hisses at himself, kicking his feet to try to get both shoes and pants off.
Looking down at him - flushed in his bed wearing only his underwear, tented with arousal – Natasha thinks Bucky Barnes is one beautiful man.
“Hey,” she purrs to get his attention. Natasha leans over to press a chaste kiss to his lips, then one to his chin, his neck and collar bone, moving down to trail kisses down his sternum and abs. Her body slides down as her kisses do, she’s off of him entirely when she nips the waistband of his briefs.
On her knees before him she runs her hands over his toned thighs and calves. He watches her with glazed eyes and bated breath. Natasha tugs his jeans and shoes off with quick movements and tosses them aside, they must hit something judging from the sound but she can’t be bothered to check.
Natasha knows how to make this a performance for him, thinks he might enjoy a bit of a show. So she stands and slips the straps of her dress off her shoulders and lets the little scrap of fabric fall to pool around her feet. One knee slides up to press onto the mattress between his legs, close enough to brush up against his groin.
As she crawls up his body her stomach brushes the tip of his erection. Bucky, her captivated audience, visibly restrains himself from bucking his hips up.
Distantly she thinks he has remarkable self control. How long could he keep that up, she wonders.
“You’re killing me here.” Bucky groans out.
So dramatic she thinks. “I promise it’ll be a good death.” She says.
He groans again, but it sounds a bit like a laugh too, and sits up to press open mouthed kisses to her cleavage. “I don’t doubt it” he says into her chest. His hands skim up her back to struggle with the clasp of her strapless bra. She lets him fumble with it a bit while she enjoys the dedicated work of his mouth.
Bucky cusses before giving up on the clasp of her bra and just tugging it down around her waist. His hands joining lips and tongue and teeth on her now free breasts turn her snicker into a gasp.
Natasha buries one hand in his thick hair and runs the other down the small space between them to rub against him. Bucky groans, surprisingly loud to her ears, and pulls her closer. Instinctively she grinds down on him. His hips rut against her, chasing the friction between her hand and groin.
“Do you have any –“ condoms, she’s going to say, but is cut off by Bucky shifting their weight so they both fall to their sides. He reaches around her to pull open the drawer to the bedside table and comes back with a box of them. “Getting ahead of yourself, Barnes?” she hums.
He tries for a smirk, but fails at it entirely with his messy hair and swollen lips. “We can slow down if you want. Take you back to the club and dance until you can’t walk anymore.”
“The hell you will.” Natasha snatches the box from him and pulls one out, nodding down at their tangled legs. “Take ‘em off.”
She watches as he hooks his thumbs in the band and wiggles out of his underwear, much as he had with his pants, tossing them aside. Then he slips his fingers under the waistband of her own and waits for her to give the go ahead before slowly peeling them off of her. The bra joins them somewhere on the floor before he wraps a hand around her ankle.
Naked in his bed but for her heels the thought of having him with his face between her legs and her legs over his shoulders with her heels digging into his back has her squirming. Maybe next time, she thinks, when he drops her shoes to the floor.
“At least I could get those off properly.” He says with a husky voice, taking the condom from her and rolling it on.
Bucky settles between her legs, sliding wonderfully against her. “You just need practice.” She tells him, pushing herself up to lock their lips together when he pushes into her, sliding home in one smooth movement. They both cry out with it. Natasha’s head tips back and Bucky ducks his head to press his face into her neck.
“Fuck.” He says, starting to grind into her.
It doesn’t take long for them to find a rhythm, with him kneeling on the mattress and her half on his lap, one arm wrapped around his shoulders and the planted on the bed to support her wait. Bucky has his left hand on holding onto her waist, guiding their movement, his right hand thumbing at her where they’re joined.
He’s a much more vocal lover than she. The only times she’s ever been loud were when sex was more a performance than for her own pleasure. Bucky though – he moans and curses and showers her with praise. And his face! He lets her see everything in it. It’s almost too much for her, the feeling she sees in his face.
Bucky reaches his peak with her name on his lips, rough and broken. “Natasha-“ he almost whispers, and that sends her over the edge with him.
She stays after, not because its late and she’s tired and sated, but because he asks her to.
Natasha wakes deliciously sore, bones popping when she stretches. One of Bucky’s legs is thrown over hers, and he sleeps with his face smooshed against his pillow. It turns out he sleeps like a log, though that could be due to the combination of alcohol and sex from the night before.
It’s still pretty early and she could curl back up in his bed and sleep for a few more hours but her mouth feels like its full of cotton and her stomach demands she eat something.
Bucky whines in his sleep when she slips out of bed but doesn’t wake.
She slips her panties on, puts on last nights dress without her bra and leaves the room with more grace than she feels.
The smell of fresh coffee permeates the apartment, drawing her down the hall. Just the thought of coffee and breakfast settle her stomach. They usually have enough food in the kitchen to feed a large family. She could probably find some fruit, or fry up some eggs, did Bucky like omelettes?
The thoughts of food are forgotten when she sees Steve sitting at the breakfast bar. Something like dread fills her, her stomach falls as she approaches her friend in his own kitchen while wearing last nights clothes and sporting visible hickeys.
“Hey,” she says, voice rough but steady “I thought you were getting back tomorrow.”
Up close she can see his ferocious blush as it spreads.
“We wrapped up early. Got home last night.”
Last night, which means he was home the whole time they were knocking boots down the hall. Embarrassment floods her. Steve hasn’t even looked at her – he probably can’t stand to. She knows how he worries about Bucky. And there she was, Steve leaves for a few days and in moves the Black Widow. She’s a terrible friend.
“Steve, I’m so sorry.”
That gets him to look at her, face red as a tomato. He opens his mouth to say something but is interrupted by Bucky shuffling down the hall with a yawn.
Evidently not a morning person, he grumbles out a greeting to Steve but stops to brush a kiss against her cheek on the way to the coffee pot. Somehow Steve’s face gets even more red. Behind them Bucky bangs around cabinet doors and mugs, returning with two hot cups of coffee.
Natasha thanks him for hers quietly, feeling wrong footed in a way she never has before.
“You’re back early.” Bucky comments once the caffeine works its magic.
The two of them catch up on the weeks events while Natasha nurses her coffee and analyzes the situation. She likes Bucky a lot, he clearly feels the same way, but he’s Steve’s best friend, and Steve is also her friend, her good friend who means a lot to her, and he’s uncomfortable and has barely looked at or spoken to her. He’s always been big on eye contact so the avoidance now is notable. As co-leaders of the team she can’t risk damaging their ability to work together, she also couldn’t do anything to come between Bucky and Steve, but she doesn’t want to hurt Bucky either. Fuck. This situation is completely out of her wheelhouse. She needs some perspective, maybe an outside opinion.
So wrapped up trying to figure out what to do, Natasha doesn’t notice the conversation drops off until Bucky reaches over to squeeze the hand she has rested on the countertop. She tunes in to see the both of them watching her. Bucky looks quietly curious, but Steve’s got that look he gets sometimes. The one she’d first seen in Sam’s spare bedroom when they were on the run from SHIELD. Concerned and serious and steady as a rock.
“Nat, you okay?”
“Am I ok?” She repeats incredulously. “Are you?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” He asks. Steve, who always wears his emotions freely, looks baffled.
“Steve,” she keeps her voice very flat to cover her unease “you can’t even look me in the eye.”
His fading blush returns with a vengeance when Bucky starts laughing. “Aw, Stevie, did we offend your delicate sensibilities?”
“Wouldn’t have stuck around with you so long if I had any sensibilities.” Steve rolled his eyes.
“Should’ve let us know you were coming home early. We could have gone to Natasha’s place instead.” Bucky says. He squeezes her hand again, showing no sign of letting go.
“I didn’t want to interrupt your date.” Steve defends lightly, not looking at either of them.
Hold up, Natasha thinks. She turns to Bucky in surprise. “Was that a date?”
He frowns, looking crestfallen. “Did you not know we were on a date?”
To think, she had spent so much time telling herself that it wasn’t, that they were friends blowing off steam. Steve has the good grace to hide his laugh in his coffee cup, not enough to leave the room though. The voyeur.
“You never said it was a date.” She shrugs, a weak explanation to her own ears. Honestly, she’s supposed to be good at reading people, she should have picked it up.
The breath Bucky lets out is long and tired. Then he straightens himself out and sends a charming smile her way. “I guess I’ll have to try asking you out again.”
“I guess you will.” Natasha grins.
From a little ways away they hear a sigh and look up to see Steve watching them with the dopiest face she’s ever seen on him. “Sorry, it’s just nice. Bucky’s never dated anyone I actually liked before. I never thought he’d work up the nerve.”
Bucky makes an offended sound. If it’s about his former paramours or his lack of nerve she isn’t sure.”
“Well, thank you Steve. I like you too.”
“Now that we’re clear about everyone liking everyone and Steve is done blushing, I’m starving.” Bucky says, sounding not at all offended or put out anymore.
Quick to respond to any ideas of food, Steve gathers all their mugs – empty or not – and sticks them in the sink. “Do you guys wanna get breakfast?” He asks “we could go to the diner down the street.”
Natasha, who has no clothes to change into, tells them she will meet them there after going home to get dressed. The goodbyes are longer than usual, with Bucky walking her to the door of the building and pulling her in to kiss her before letting her go.
“So, Natasha, do you want to go on a date sometime?” he asks with all the confidence of a man who knows the answer.
She looks over her shoulder at him, considering. “I’ll think about it,” she says, hopping down the last step onto the sidewalk. She sends him a wink for good measure when he laughs, and tells him she’ll see them for breakfast.