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“Holy cow!”
Natasha had to bite her lip to keep the laughter in when she heard that particular phrase, especially given the person who just said it.
“Wow. I’ve never even known Rogers use that one,” she said, sidling up beside Bucky Barnes and marvelling at the fact he didn’t even flinch.
She wasn’t sure why she should be surprised given his Winter Soldier training but, as a rule, he had been awfully skittish since the deprogramming. Maybe he was finally settling in at the Avengers compound and believed he was among friends at last. Of course, that didn’t mean he wasn’t forever overawed by Tony Stark’s extravagance. That was enough to still surprise even Nat herself sometimes.
“It’s a little much, isn’t it?” she said, arms folded across her chest as she too stared up at the over-sized Christmas tree.
“I actually think it’s bigger than the one they have at Rockefeller Centre,” Bucky admitted, blinking up at the tree and it’s almost-blinding array of twinkling lights.
“Well, you know Stark.” Nat shrugged. “He’s one of those guys who just has to know he has the biggest... tree,” she said, smirking terribly as she looked sideways at Cap’s best bud.
If she didn’t know better, she would say he was trying not to blush as much as he was trying not to laugh. Sometimes, it was a little too easy to forget this guy was from so long ago, when nice girls didn’t make remarks like that. Other times it was all too easy to remember.
“So, how come you’re down here?” he asked her then, sparing her a glance. “I thought the party was upstairs, and a really hoppin’ affair,” he said, deliberately using the old-fashioned phrasing to amuse her, as far as Nat could tell.
“Oh, it’s quite the occasion,” she said, smiling as they turned and faced each other, “and I wouldn’t be missing it, if somebody hadn’t wandered off. You know in this place, walking out on a good party is an offence of the highest order.”
She thought it was okay to make jokes. After all, hadn’t he been playing along up to now? When Bucky suddenly looked pained and started looking anywhere but at her, Nat realised her choice of words could’ve been better. She, of all people, should have realised that talking about things in terms of offences, crimes, infractions, it just reminded the reformed of what they used to be.
“You know, flexible as I am, I don’t put my foot in my mouth much,” she said then, getting Bucky’s attention back in a second. “Give a girl a break for the holidays, would you?” she urged him. “It’s been a long year.”
“You’re not kidding,” Bucky agreed, pushing his hair back off his face. “Don’t worry about me, I’m fine. I guess I’m just not feeling all that sociable or... festive,” he said, clearly not knowing how else to describe it.
“Not full of the holiday spirit.” Nat nodded. “I can understand that. Well, we can hang out here for a while. Honestly, I’m not exactly in a party mood either.”
She walked out from under the shadow of the Christmas tree then (which was not an easy task) and sat herself down on the plush seating on the other side of what was basically the lobby. She didn’t actually ask Bucky to join her, just sat far enough along the couch that he could if he wanted to, making a big deal of straightening her dress over her knees.
“Truth is, I only showed up because... well, because I was invited, I guess.” Bucky sighed, hands in his pockets, the picture of a lost little boy somehow, still so much the innocent he must have been almost a hundred years before, despite everything that happened in between. “Besides, Steve has this whole thing about me needing to get out in the world, be among people,” he said, rolling his eyes then.
“He means well. He always means well, even when he’s driving you crazy.” Nat smirked.
That got a genuine laugh out of Bucky, albeit a brief one, as he finally wandered over and sat down alongside her. She noticed he left a good distance of a couple of feet between them, but that was okay. Nat took as it as a win that he was even within touching distance, in the circumstances. Anti-social didn’t even begin to cover it with Bucky when he was still screwed up from the Winter Soldier programming, but from what Steve had said, Bucky was very different back in the day.
“I do understand what it’s like, more than you know, actually,” Nat told him then.
“Me and Steve... it’s not the same,” Bucky told her. “Knowing him doesn’t mean you know me. We’re very different people. We always were, but now...” he trailed off, turning away, shaking his head.
“Hey, nobody’s making comparisons,” Nat assured him, her hand at his elbow getting his attention back all too quickly. “Or maybe they are, but I’m not,” she clarified.
Bucky smiled something of a grateful smile as he looked at her then. When he opened his mouth, she expected maybe he was just going to say thanks or whatever. She got a real surprise when a question came out instead.
“Do you wanna dance?”
Nat felt her eyes widen with surprise. Not much could do that to her anymore. She thought she had seen and heard it all, but apparently not.
“Really?” she checked, one eyebrow quirked.
“I know I can keep up with this one,” said Bucky, pointing upwards to the party from where the music emanated.
It was nothing Nat knew the title to, but the tune was vaguely familiar, and she suspected it might just be as old as Bucky was. She watched him get up and hold out a hand for her to take. Without pause, she nodded her head.
“I’d be honoured, Sergeant Barnes,” she said, taking the offered hand and allowing herself to be pulled into his arms.
“So formal, Miss Romanoff?” he said, smirking a little.
“Hey, I can be old-fashioned too,” she said, settling into his embrace as they waltzed around the floor.
She knew how to do this, no problem at all, but even though she knew this was more his timeframe than hers, she had expected Bucky to be a little rusty. Not so, it seemed, as he led her effortlessly across the shining floor, spinning her out and back into his arms before she hardly managed to process what happened.
When she landed back in his arms, Nat seemed to be that much closer to Bucky than before, and honestly, she wasn’t sure if she had done that or he had. However, she was entirely sure on what she wanted to do next.
“Old-fashioned is fine sometimes,” she said softly, meeting his gaze, “but there are also advantages to being a modern woman in the twenty-first century.”
Knowing she had one shot at this, Nat pushed herself forward before either she or Bucky had too much time to think about it, pressing her lips firmly against his own. He didn’t react much, but he also didn’t try to get away. Of course, he looked every shade of startled and confused when she pulled back to look at him again.
“What was that for?” he asked her softly - close as they were, she heard him perfectly well.
Nat blinked twice before she found an answer she was okay with actually giving. “It’s Christmas. Blame the mistletoe,” she told him, with as close to a shy smile as she could manage these days.
Bucky frowned slightly as he glanced upward. Nat didn’t need to do the same to know there was nothing up there but an over-abundance of twinkling lights. No mistletoe, that much was for certain.
Smiling in spite of the truth, Bucky didn’t seem willing or able to look back at her after that. “I’m starting to think you just like teasing me.”
“I save my teasing for Rogers,” she told him quickly, glad to have his eyes back on hers as she continued. “He blushes easier than anybody else I ever met. You... Well, you, I could be serious about,” she admitted, wondering at the way her heart was beating wildly in her chest.
Pressed up against Bucky, she had to wonder if it was actually him that was getting nervous, or maybe it was the both of them. Nat wasn’t sure anymore. She just knew she hadn’t felt like this in too long and, crazy as it had to make her, she wanted more. Still, if this was going to be one-sided on her part, or if she was just going to scare him away, it wasn’t worth pushing.
The song ended, with nothing else apparently going to follow for a while. They stopped dancing, and yet, their arms were still around each other, and the intense look in his eyes was sticking her to the spot the way nothing and nobody ever had before.
“At least one of the two of us is crazy,” Bucky told her then, not giving her a chance to reply or even process before his lips descended on hers and he kissed her like he meant it.
Nat wasted not a second of her chance to get involved, the moment lasting as long as she could make it. They were both gasping by the time they parted.
“Still okay with the fact you’re missing the party?” she asked, because honestly, she felt like she had to be saying something in the silence that followed.
Bucky shook his head and smiled down at her. “I don’t feel like I’m missing anything.”
That made her smile too. Nat started to wonder when she had last felt like she wanted to grin this much, to laugh, to be young and foolish and, could she even dare add, in love?
As the music started to filter down from upstairs again, she felt Bucky’s grip on her tighten, and with some silent agreement made, they began moving again, perfectly in time with the beat and melody from above.
She spun out from his arms and back in in one fluid movement, then laughed loudly when he unexpectedly dipped her low and kissed her cheek before he let her back up. Nat knew he had a point about at least one of them being crazy, and she knew damn well in quite how many ways it was true.
Whatever happened between her and Bucky from here on out was bound to be messy and complicated. It would probably end horribly badly someday. Still, it was Christmas, Nat’s heart felt as light as her feet, and they had both found reason enough to smile tonight. Everything else, they could worry about later. For now, they could just keep on dancing, kissing, wishing the world away in their warm little bubble of hope, pretending for a while that the real world wasn’t quite so cold. That was good enough for tonight.