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"Suck and blow?" Steve's eyebrow shot up so high it looked like it was going to fly off his face.
Natasha decided to tell him so. "Your eyebrow is going to literally fly off of your face if you don't get it under control, Captain Rogers."
Steve rolled his eyes.
Natasha narrowed hers playfully. "Don't roll your eyes at me."
Sam groaned. "You sound like my mother."
Natasha winked at him. She was reclined on Steve's plush leather sofa in his D.C. apartment with a tumbler full of scotch in one hand and a deck of cards in the other. (There were also four knives and a gun on her person, but they didn't need to know that.) Sam stood across the room from her, leaning on a bookcase and rifling through a collection of vinyl records, looking for music perfect for the occasion.
The occasion, according to Steve, was something along the lines of "we should all hang out to strengthen the team or something", which Natasha translated to "I miss you guys please come over" and "I really want the recovering brainwashed assassin I'm living with to have friends other than me". She'd hauled ass and managed to sneak into the apartment that night, much to the displeasure of James Buchanan Barnes, who hadn't recognized her in the dark and attacked her with a kitchen knife. Once that misunderstanding had been cleared up he'd given her his room to sleep in and he'd slept on the couch. A true gentleman. Unlike Captain fucking America, who snored right through the whole thing.
Sam arrived the next evening with a bag of Doritos and a plastic container full of cookies.
"My mother baked a shit ton of cookies after she learned I was friends with Captain America," he had said, trying to explain, and all it took was one whiff of those cookies for James- no, Bucky- to take the container away and disappear. He'd already been reclusive (possibly from the shame or embarassment of attacking Natasha the night before and fighting them on the causeway), and then he'd really vanished.
So, there they were: Sam looking through vinyls, Natasha relaxing, Bucky god-knows-where, and Steve wondering what the fuck had just been suggested for a party game.
"This isn't as bad as it sounds, Steve," Natasha assured him, casually making a small gesture with her tumbler so her scotch wouldn't spill but she'd still get her point across. "Suck and blow is a card game. Sort of."
"Uh-huh." Steve gave her a look full of disapproval and mild disbelief. "Sure."
She sighed, placed her tumbler on a coaster on the coffee table in front of her, and then leaned back on the couch and propped her feet up. "You basically-"
"Get your feet off the table," Steve interrupted.
"Who are you borrowing the coffee table from? The President?" Natasha quipped, but she took her feet down and buried her toes in the soft carpet.
Steve chuckled.
"Aha! Got it!" Sam placed all but one of the records on the coffee table where Natasha's feet had been a moment before. He put the record in place on the record player and lowered the needle. A jazz-type tune started to play, and Natasha would be lying if she said she didn't like it.
"As I was saying," she began again, "you basically all sit in a row or a circle. A circle is better. You take a playing card," she drew the ace of hearts from her deck, "and you put it on your lips, like this." She pursed her lips and pressed the ace to them, then took the card away again so she could talk. "To keep the card there when you let go you have to suck in air. Then you have to get the card on the lips of the next person in the ring or line. You lean in like a kiss and when you feel the pressure of their lips on the card, you blow air and they suck air, and the card is supposed to stick to their face."
"I remember playing that game in high school!" Sam grinned. "If it gets dropped in the process they have to kiss."
Steve blinked and repeated, "Kiss?"
"K-I-S-S."
"Thank you, Sam, I know how it's spelled." Both of Steve's eyebrows looked like they were trying to escape his face now. "And you want us to play this game."
"I figured you need the practice," Natasha said flippantly, and when she met his eyes she didn't bother to hide her smile.
"Oh, fuck you," Steve muttered, throwing his hands up in the air, but he was grinning ear to ear.
"Come sit down." Natasha patted the couch cushions on either side of her. There was enough space for all three of them to sit on the couch, she thought.
She was wrong. When Steve sat down on her left and Sam on her right she found herself uncomfortably squished between them. "I changed my mind. We're going to stand in a circle."
Less than a minute later they were standing in a circle in the kitchen. Sam stood in the doorway; on Natasha's left, and Steve stood on her right. Steve turned his head to the right and whispered, "On your left," in Sam's ear. Sam just swore at him good-naturedly. Natasha didn't understand, but she and Steve had joked to each other previously and Sam hadn't asked, so she afforded him the same courtesy and pretended like she hadn't heard it.
She held up the ace of hearts. "Who wants to start?"
Sam shrugged. "I will, I guess." Natasha handed him the card. He pressed the ace to his lips and inhaled quickly through the mouth, and then leaned down slightly so he could press his lips (behind the card) to Natasha's. She stared up into his beautiful dark eyes and schooled her face into something perfectly still so the card would not fall when it was hers. She wouldn't be the first loser, that was for sure. Sam stared back into her eyes, and she detected the slightest hint of a blush on his face.
She turned to face Steve, who was a good nine inches taller than her. She tugged on his shoulder, and he took the hint and leaned down. She slowly pressed the card to his lips and batted her eyelashes, and enjoyed the way his whole face flushed bright red as he took the card.
He, in turn, pressed the card to Sam's lips, and both Natasha and Sam were pleased that there'd been no hesitation. Steve was determined. That was good. Natasha and Sam communicated silently when he passed her the card. They, too, were determined.
They managed to make it three more go-arounds without anyone dropping it. Steve grew more relaxed and lost most of his blush, though he looked like a deer caught in the headlights when Sam decided to be like Natasha and bat his lashes at Steve. Natasha and Sam tried to one-up each other with how intimate they could be without dropping the card, and that was what ruined them. Or saved them, depending on how you looked at it.
They were on the fourth turn. Sam put his arms around Natasha's waist and clasped his hands at her lower back. She threw her arms around his neck and he leaned down to place the card on her lips, but he was just slightly off the mark, and the card slipped and fell right down the front of her shirt.
"Oh," Sam's eyes widened. He glanced down, and she knew he was wondering whether he should grab the card or if he should let her do it.
"Oops," she murmured. "You gonna get that?"
"Are you going to kill me if I do?" He asked, only half joking.
Natasha smirked. "That depends. Are you a good kisser?"
He actually looked indignant. "Is water wet?"
She smiled, turning up the charm as much as she could. "Then how about you get that card and then prove it to me?"
Sam delicately plucked the card from inside her shirt without touching a sliver of skin and tossed it in Steve's general direction. He leaned in close, and their mouths met in a shy, chaste kiss, not lasting long enough. When Sam pulled away he didn't go very far. They were close enough that their noses touched. Natasha stood on her tip-toes to get her mouth on his again, but she went up slowly, giving him time to send her a signal if he didn't want to kiss anymore. But that didn't happen. He met her halfway instead, his hand sliding up to her neck, and his thumb stroked the curve of her jaw. Her mouth opened slightly wider in response, and god, did Sam kiss well. He kissed slowly, though, tantalizingly slowly, and Natasha wanted more.
Steve cleared his throat, startling them both, and they abruptly withdrew from each other, but she could still feel the warmth of Sam's hands on her. Sam looked mildly embarrassed. Natasha was fairly certain that she was radiating triumph.
"You two done?" He asked, trying and failing to keep his face serious.
"If you'll pass me the card, Captain Rogers," Natasha held out her hand demurely.
Steve just smirked broadly at the two of them and slapped the card down in her hand. "As you wish."
Oh, no. Steve was not allowed to be smug about this. Natasha would have to take him down a peg.
Her gaze darted over to behind Sam, where Bucky was silently walking towards them, empty plastic container in hand. Natasha knew what she had to do. She met Sam's eyes, flickering back and forth from him to the doorway he was standing in, and when he got the message and turned to see Bucky, Natasha put the card on her lips and headed for Steve's.
He received the card without incident and turned to Sam, already leaning in to give him the card, but Sam wasn't there. He'd stepped off to the side so Bucky could pass through.
Steve jerked to halt half a centimeter from Bucky's surprised face. Bucky froze. Both men's eyes were comically wide and neither moved from their spots. And Steve (poor guy, probably got lost in the blueness of Bucky's eyes) forgot how to breathe, and he forgot he was supposed to be sucking the card in, and it fell right to the ground.
Steve stared at the card on the ground. Bucky stared at Steve.
"That- that was an accident," Steve stammered, turning red.
"You've gotta kiss him, Steve, it's the rules!" Natasha exclaimed with a huge grin, and Steve turned his head to glare at her.
He turned back, his mouth open, probably about to apologize and tell Bucky what was going on, but he never got to say a word, because Bucky grabbed his head with both hands and kissed him deeply.
Sam whistled.
After a minute Bucky pulled back, lips red and pupils blown, mouth curving up into a shy grin. Steve was shell-shocked and blushing red as sin, unable to form a coherent sentence.
"I think we should definitely invite Bucky to play," Sam whispered conspiratorially to Natasha.
Bucky stepped around Steve and put the empty plastic container he'd been carrying in the sink. "Play what?"
"A party game called 'suck and blow'."
"What?"
Natasha threw her hands up in the air with a huff. "This isn't as bad as it sounds!"