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Nat's decided to dye her hair black. It is, quite frankly, incredibly unsettling. It's not that she doesn't look nice; Buck maintains that she would look nice with her hair shaved off and wearing nothing but sackcloth and ashes--just. It's not what he expects. She comes home with it already done, a shock of black where there should be a streak of red, wriggles her way in through the window with a smirk on her face, like nothing's changed. For a split second, he doubts his own mind. Then he hears the unmistakable sound of porcelain shattering on the ground, hears the familiar timbre of Sam's voice linger over Natasha's name, and he knows that he's not experiencing some strange delusion. Or at least that it's a shared one.
The hint of a smile gracing Nat's lips grows into a proper thing, and she puts a hand on her hip, cocks her head to a side; makes brief eye contact with Bucky (just enough to re-establish that he is still there, that she has returned to him as she always has, as she always will). Then she moves on to Sam, head tilting even further to the side, hair falling to her shoulder as it succumbs to gravity. "Like what you see then, Wilson?" She teases. Sam's standing in a puddle of coffee and broken glass but neither of those facts are enough to dampen the smile he returns to her. "Every time, Romanoff."
Buck doesn't know how long they would all have stood there, frozen in their little tableau if Steve hadn't chosen that moment to emerge from the kitchen to see what all the fuss is about--but he does, frying pan still in hand and kitchen towel still tossed nonchalantly over his shoulder, so the question is moot, swallowed by Steve's exclamation at the mess, at Nat's reappearance. ("Nat, great, you're back, can you get the broom so this moron doesn't slice his feet to ribbons, your hair looks fantastic, seriously Wilson if you try to move--") He's been getting swept up under Steve's momentum for longer than he can remember, literally, and there's a comfort to it, even with the new dynamic Sam and Natasha add. They all end up at the kitchen table, or the three of them do, with Steve still playing service at the stove. The apartment smells like pancakes and coffee (though that last one may be more Sam's fault than anything else), and Bucky cannot stop stealing looks at Natasha when he thinks she's not paying attention. In fact, he cannot stop stealing looks at Natasha so much that there are pancakes, on his plate, growing cold. He thinks at one point he picked up the fork? Probably. Sam is doing a wonderful job at packing in the food and still monopolizing her attention, so Bucky's not entirely sure why he hasn't actually eaten yet, but. That point, too, is dismissed as moot when Natasha glances over to catch him staring for probably the third time in the space of as many minutes.
They engage in what might be a staring contest, Nat's face the picture of amused benevolence, Bucky's (hopefully) not letting on exactly how much of a lovestruck sap he feels like.
Of course, that would be a futile hope. Sam takes one look at the two of them, and suggests "You know what, I think it's probably cruel and unusual punishment to make Steve fry enough pancakes for your sorry asses. Why don't you visit Margoletta's, I'm pretty sure the waitstaff have given us up for dead." Nat sends him a wicked smile, and Bucky--well. He'd pretend to be reluctant to leave the kitchen, but seeing as he's already grabbing a sweater to combat the cool fall air, that would be a bit of an exercise in futility. Five minutes sees the two of them out the door, arm in arm. She smiles up at him, he smiles down at her, and between the two of them they manage to project enough of an air of harmlessness that they actually need to pay half a mind to the sidewalk in front of them. After a while, he asks "How've you been?" and manages not to feel like a complete idiot for it. Mostly because Nat launches at once into some sort of spiel about the exact nature of the mysterious thing called girls' night and just what it might entail (along with what it might usually not--Bucky doesn't think that most girls' nights include weapons swaps, but he's met or heard about each of the people Natasha calls her girlfriends, and it doesn't surprise him at all that she's packing new heat the day after a night out), not that he had any need to know about just what goes on during girls’ night that she knew of, unless his identity had shifted since they last touched base.
Things haven't, but it's--touching, that she asks, head cocked to the side and a single eyebrow raised, like it's the most obvious thing in the world that she would.
They end up strewn across a booth at Margoletta's, more plates than Bucky's 1930s bred concept of budgeting is comfortable with scattered in front of them and syrup somehow down the entire side of his shirt. They're each on opposite sides of the booth. He's not sure how it got there, but he knows it's Nat's fault--she looks far too pleased with herself for it to have been an accident. Other than the music playing faintly and the sounds of the late-night waitress tidying around them, the diner is all but empty--still, he feels comfortable in his skin. The roaring hunger that lives in his stomach has been muted, and he can sit and watch Natasha fiddle with her latest trade from Maria, secure in the knowledge that the world knows who they are and (wonder of wonders) doesn't mind. Of course, Nat's not exactly content to sit around long. He's just started to hum along to the music when she is suddenly standing, whipcord tight, every line of her communicating her readiness for motion. As ever, he is as helpless in her wake as he is in Steve's, and soon enough he too is on his feet, gloves pulled onto his hands and all thoughts of maybe another round of waffles left to languish by the roadside. She extends a hand, and he takes it, after he tosses enough money onto the tabletop to cover the bill--he's developed the habit of not glancing at the money before he leaves it, out of some misplaced sense of self-preservation, or maybe just to keep denying inflation for as long as possible.
The second her grip on his hand is secure, they're dashing for the doorway, her hair a black stream behind her and her laughter a sparkling in the air. The warmth in his stomach is happiness, the warmth in his stomach is the threat of a stitch if he runs too far too fast on it. Clutching her hand even closer, he ducks his head and puts on a burst of speed to draw up next to her.
It's dark, properly so by now, the streetlights shedding pools of light on the cracked pavement every so often, the only other light from the stars and the neon proudly proclaiming the wares of the shops whose outsides they adorn. Before, it had caught and absorbed the deep bleed of Natasha's hair, whenever they'd come flying through. Now, it simply reflects back, and he will insist to his dying day that it is only the stitch in his side nearly causes him to miss a step, but the truth is that Natasha is beautiful, and he does not always know how to cope with the realization of exactly how deep that beauty goes. Which is not to say that he doesn't intend to beat her into the dust as soon as they reach the gym. Because he does, stitch in his side or no.