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Steve Rogers is not a saint.
Sure, his mom was Catholic, and he’d grown up raised in the faith. Also true, he liked to volunteer at the community center painting murals and spending time with the kids. And sometimes he might help the occasional little old lady cross the street.
Steve’s pretty sure saints don’t want to sleep with their hot, endearingly awkward male neighbors. He hasn’t been to Confession for a good long while, in direct relation to this issue. His mother would not be pleased, bless her soul.
So far, Ms. Romanov is the only person he’s told this little detail, possibly because he’s pretty sure she doesn’t understand a thing he tells her and therefore won’t be telling anyone else. She’s very easy to talk to about these things, but her advice needs a little work.
He’d run into her recently while moving in. In his defense, he’d been carrying a television in his face and she hadn’t bothered to move out of the way. Neither of them were injured, but he can safely say he’s never been so vivaciously cursed at in Russian.
Steve, feeling badly about the incident, had brought her coffee and breakfast the next morning. She’d taken the food and the latte silently from him, a small crease in her brow, and (still silent) closed the door in his face.
Already, progress.
Since then, he’s taken to greeting her in the halls, the elevator, and the laundry room. Sometimes she nods, occasionally the corners of her lips will curve in the barest hint of a smile before her face blanks and she continues on her way. (He knows her name from one such incident: the name and address on her mail read ‘Natasha Romanov,’ and he only feels a little bad about peeking.)
On the day he told Ms. Romanov of his crush, he’d been doing his laundry, talking to himself and to her, sorting his whites from his colors and generally just enjoying the atmosphere, when his thoughts wandered to Bucky. He’d then remembered their first and subsequent meetings, speculating aloud on whether his neighbor was that awkward all of the time, or just because he liked Steve back.
His explanation was along the lines of:
“I thought he was one of those hipster types, you know, the kids with the overgrown beards and the interest in aesthetic and whatnot, but it turns out he just never goes clothes shopping so all of his things have like a million holes.”
Natasha grunted at him. Her dryer dinged, and she moved forward to begin folding her laundry into the basket at her feet.
“He’s really nice though? I found out the other day that he’s a war veteran, and apparently because of how he lost his arm he ended up with this super high-tech prosthesis, which is really cool, and really fitting, because he told me he really used to be into math and engineering as a kid, so I think he wants to look into finishing out his degree. He’s so smart, and I can’t imagine what that whole experience must’ve been like, but the fact that he’s, you know, not giving up on life completely is just really amazing.”
His conversation partner merely sighed at him, moving to open her second dryer now that she was done with the first. It still had a few minutes left on the timer, but she probably had somewhere that she was in a hurry to be.
“Honestly, though. The brains, and the drive, and the horrible taste in clothes. He’s just, really perfect? I mean not perfect, but, you know. Dreamy. I, um. I sketched him the other day. Took me three hours to find the right color for his eyes and the next time I saw him they were a completely different shade! He asked me to go with him to the gym this week, and I might honestly have a heart attack.”
Natasha finished folding her second load, hefting the basket onto her hip. She had a small smile on her face, but Steve didn’t know what she might’ve been smiling about.
As she reached the door, he called out, “Bye, Natasha!” She nodded, smile growing wider, before leaving him alone with his thoughts.
…
The next time he sees Bucky is right as the other man is boarding the elevator. Steve smiles, waves, says hello. Bucky blushes the entire time, stammers a hello, and shoots out of the elevator the second they reached the right floor. It’s a pretty weird interaction, even for what he’s grown to expect.
…
Steve wakes up one morning a few days later to the smell of donuts and an insistent knocking on his front door. He opens it to see a widely smiling Natasha holding a steaming mug and a plate. She holds each out to him, which he takes with some confusion.
“Thank you,” he says. She smiles, shakes her head a bit, and retreats to her own door.
Steve, confused, shuts his own as well.
…
After the donuts, which Steve appreciated immensely, because it turned out that he didn’t have anything edible in his fridge that morning, he starts seeing Natasha more often.
They seem to have a similar schedule: he’ll be leaving for school right around the time she’ll be coming back in, then when it is time for her to leave, he’ll be coming home. They both do laundry on the same days, and he always stops to say hello, if not much else, if they happen to be checking their mail at the same time.
If they have a minute, he’ll usually tell her about something he is working on, or a classmate who’s said something rude or insensitive in class, or about one of their neighbors whose dogs occasionally keep him up at night, but whom he’s never seen.
Bucky stops blushing and stammering at him eventually. It takes a week or two, but when he does, Steve finally gets up the courage to ask him out for coffee. Bucky says yes. Steve is thrilled. Natasha gifts him another of her demure smiles, very Mona Lisa-like around the edges. Steve wonders how difficult it would be to ask her to model for him some day. He never seems to think about it until he sees her smile.
…
He meets Sam Wilson in the elevator bank, one day after class.
It’s raining, and of course he hadn’t brought an umbrella with him. He’d taken his shirt off to wrap around his bag for an added layer of protection. Literally the last thing he needed was another ruined sketchbook.
Sam Wilson is gorgeous and he’s easy to talk to and charming as Hell. Steve’s very Catholic conscious is upset that he thinks that’s a good thing. Sam chats him up in the elevator bank, very blatantly checks out his naked chest until Steve can feel himself blushing from the roots of his hair down to his belly button.
He brings up Bucky, because he doesn’t want to be that asshole, and Sam backs off, but. They talk, and it’s fun, and easy. They make (strictly platonic!) brunch plans for the following day, since Sam’s new in town and could use a friend.
When Steve tells Natasha, she grunts at him, but doesn’t give any advice for his lovesore heart. He’s not sure why he expected anything less.
…
His not-date with Sam is a success. He tells Bucky about it before he goes, because he still doesn’t want to be the guy sneaking around behind his maybe-boyfriend’s back, and also because there’s really nothing to hide.
If anything, Bucky’s glad Steve’s making friends. He says it’s easier that way, because then Bucky will gain friends by default without having to do any of the work. Also, of course we’re boyfriends, you big dork. Steve’s not sure that’s how relationships actually work, but he’s a little in love with his official hermit boyfriend and he’s pretty sure Sam can get along with anybody.
…
One day, when Steve is taking out the trash, he rounds the corner of the building to see Natasha sitting by herself, petting an oddly familiar looking cat and smoking a cigarette.
“I didn’t know you smoked.” She hardly spares him a glance before returning her attention to the cat. He sighs, leaning against the brick wall next to her.
“Actually, I don’t really know anything about you. It’s kind of sad, I think. You’re kind of one of my closest friends. Maybe I should learn Russian?”
Natasha startles him by bursting into laughter. The cat, affronted, flicks its tail and scampers back through the open door.
“You don’t have to learn Russian for me, Steve.”
It takes a second to sink in, but her voice, her Mona Lisa smile, it’s still Natasha. Who apparently speaks English. “Since when?”
She chuckles, her smile sharpening at the edges into a smirk. “Since I was a child.”
“Oh my God.” He’s having trouble processing. How much had he told her? How much did she know? Crap. “You’re the reason Bucky spent three weeks avoiding eye contact with me?”
She pats the seat next to her and he slumps down. That’s probably as good an answer as any.
“At first, I didn’t know why you kept talking to me. I just figured if I ignored you long enough, you’d go away. And then I realized that you thought I just didn’t understand you, and it was too funny to stop.”
Steve will admit that the situation is pretty funny, but he’s not really sure he likes her laughing at him when he’s been thinking of her as a friend all this time.
“You’re a really sweet guy, Steve. I’d love to be friends, if you’ll still have me.”
Ah, Hell. What are friends, if not the people who’ll laugh at you for talking about your dumb crushes all the time.
“And hey, maybe now you can try actually talking to me instead of at me?”
Steve rolls his eyes. Natasha laughs.
He thinks this is going to be a pretty amazing friendship.