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She was softer and gentler beneath his hands than he thought she would be. Maybe because he spent days, and nights, watching her take down men more than twice her size. Maybe because he had never once seen her back away from a fight. Maybe because she had been flirting with him for two years and he had never once taken her seriously, not when she spent the moments she wasn’t flirting with him trying to set him up on dates with every single woman — and man — she came into contact with.
Or maybe some of it was that until two days ago, he hadn’t entirely trusted her. Sure, they worked well together, and sure, he didn’t think she would purposely endanger him or try and get him killed, but he hadn’t known her, not really, and for that alone, he could never trust her.
But then SHIELD, and their whole world, came crashing down around them, and everything changed.
She’d found him standing outside the bunker, staring off into the dark. Her hand on his arm had been soft and cool.
“Steve,” she’d whispered.
He’d turned to look at her, had seen the vulnerability on her face, seen the pain in her eyes.
He didn’t remember if she kissed him first or he kissed her, but it didn’t matter. They barely made it back to the room Steve had been given to sleep in for the night.
He’d half expected her to tease him, to give him grief about being too ancient to perform well, but instead she had held on to him, and after they were done, he had seen the wetness in her eyes.
He hadn’t said a word.
--
He hadn’t expected anything from Sam, at least nothing more than a partner and a good friend. But Sam had surprised him from the start, so why should this time have been any different?
They’d been talking about Bucky, about Steve and Bucky, about if they would ever be able to find him again. Steve still didn’t know why he said what he did, words he had only said out loud once before in his life, decades in the past.
“I think I loved him,” he told Sam.
Sam had just nodded. “And now?”
“I think I still love him,” Steve admitted. “But I think there’s room for more.”
“That’s a good thing about the world now,” Sam said. “You don’t have to love just one person.”
Steve studied him. Sam met his eyes. An hour later they were tangled in an old blanket on the living room floor, a light sheen covering their bodies as they caught their breaths.
“This doesn’t have to mean anything,” Sam said once they could talk again.
“What if I want it to?”
--
Natasha reappeared, months after she disappeared. She didn’t say where’d she been or why she came back, but Steve walked into the kitchen one morning to get a cup of coffee, and there she was, drinking the last cup.
“Hey,” she said, like it was some normal occurrence that she was there.
Steve made a new pot of coffee and sat down beside her. She studied him, like maybe she was waiting for him to interrogate her. Instead he said, “Sam thinks he might have a new lead on Bucky.”
She nodded, then held her mug out to him for another cup of coffee.
“When do we head out?” she said.
“I was thinking after lunch,” Sam said, walking into the kitchen and taking a seat across from Steve and Natasha. “You guys up for a road trip to Tennessee?”
“Sounds like fun,” Natasha said, and Sam grinned at her.
And just like that it became the three of them.
--
The hotel in Tennessee only had one room. And that one room only had one bed.
Neither Sam or Natasha seemed to care. They tumbled on to it like they did this all the time.
Steve was less sure. He cast a glance around for a spot of floor he could sleep on. He contemplated the car.
“Don’t overthink it, Steve,” Natasha said.
“We won’t bite,” Sam told him.
Natasha smirked. “Unless you want us to.”
--
Natasha kissed him when she woke up, morning breath and all. Then she rolled over and kissed Sam.
Steve frowned at her. And at Sam.
“Did I miss something?” he said.
Natasha looked up at him. “Do you need to talk about it?”
“Actually,” Steve said. “I do.”
--
“So you want to be with me and with him?” Steve pointed at Natasha. She nodded. “And you want to be with her and with me?” Steve looked at Sam. He nodded. “And I went from thinking I had missed any chance with anyone I ever had to …” He stopped, gesturing to them both. “This.”
“Only if you want,” Natasha said.
“How does this work?” Steve asked.
Natasha smiled and took his hand. Then she took Sam’s. “Any way we want,” she said.
--
Natasha moved in. No one officially asked her to, but one morning, Steve woke up and her clothes were in his dresser and her toothbrush was on the bathroom counter and the coffee he normally bought had been replaced with the kind she liked best.
They went furniture shopping, all three of them. They argued over everything, but they found a bed that was big enough to fit them all. That one went in Sam’s room. They kept a smaller one in Steve’s old room for when someone needed a night alone.
Some nights Steve and Natasha spent the night together. Some nights he and Sam did. Other nights she and Sam did. Most nights they all spent it together.
It took time, but they learned — what each of them liked, what each of them wanted, what each of them needed even when they couldn’t express it.
“This isn’t the life I expected,” Steve said one night. They were lying in bed, all of them naked and covered in sweat. Natasha’s eyes were closed, and Sam was stroking her hair.
Sam met his eyes. “Is that a bad thing?”
Steve looked at him, at the earnestness in his eyes. Then he looked at Natasha, at the sated, sleepy look on her face.
“It’s a good thing,” Steve said, and he felt a smile he couldn’t contain break across his face. “It’s a very, very good thing.”