Work Text:
Steve can handle himself in battle. Directing his troops comes naturally to him. He thrives in the high tension, in explosions and gunfire.
But put him in a upscale dinner party and he loses all of his virility. It’s like he’s back in his old body, fumbling and awkward. He doesn’t know how to talk to the dames who openly flirt with him; hell, he doesn’t know where to look at them with their skimpy, classless dresses. Even worse is when they ask him to dance and he bumps into them or steps on their feet and, despite his apologizes, they give him vapid smiles and whisper what he knows are unkind words to their friends, who make him more uncomfortable with their curious stares.
He goes home feeling useless and pathetic and he takes a shower that’s too hot and has Jarvis play some of the music he remembers from the dance halls Bucky used to drag him to. He stands and scrubs and listens until the water begins to run cold. When he gets out, the mirror is clouded, but he can still make out the vague outline of his reflection. He frowns at it.
Wrapping a towel around his waist, he runs his hand through his hair and enters his bedroom, hoping sleep will take pity and engulf him quickly, only to find Natasha sitting on his bed.
“Oh!” he says, clutching at his towel. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize-”
“You act as though I’ve never seen a half naked man before,” she says in her expressionless way, but there’s a glimmer of amusement in her eye. He sort of smiles awkwardly at her, unsure of what to say. “I saw you had a little trouble at the event tonight.”
“Yeah,” he says, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I don’t know how Stark does it. It feels so… fake. I don’t know how to-” He trails off, uncertain of how to finish the statement. There are a lot of things he doesn’t know how to do. He doesn’t know how to talk to this new breed of people; he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to cope with the fact that everyone he knows, everyone he knew, is dead.
Natasha nods gently. “I can’t help you with pretending to like any of them, but I can help you avoid stepping on their feet. Meet me in the gym at 1500 hours and I’ll give you a crash course in dancing.”
His stomach jolts uncomfortably and he sees a glimpse of Peggy’s red lips curling at him before answering.
“Thank you,” he says and he’s embarrassed to hear tension in his voice.
She nods curtly and leaves, shutting the door gently behind her.
Sleep skirts just out of reach as he tries to keep the memories of his friends at bay.
—-
Natasha is a good teacher. He steps on her a fair few times, but she’d had the foresight to wear steel toed shoes, so she’s not terribly bothered by it. But after a while, the rhythm seeps into his bones, guided by her gently forceful hands, and he manages to master the box step. He’s sure Natasha could teach him more, could teach him tangos and horas and polskas, but he doesn’t need to know them, not today anyway.
Jimmy Dorsey’s Yours plays through the speakers and Steve tenses, but she takes a step closer to him, a inexplicably comforting gesture, and he lets the familiar tune wash over him. They sway slowly, gently together and the life he wasn’t given the chance to live seeps into his thoughts. He imagines how it could have been, winning the war and returning to the States. Peggy would hold his hand tight in hers, but her eyes would tease him. He would spin her and her smile would outshine the diamond on her finger. They’d be happy and more importantly they’d be together. He leans down to kiss her, painted lips soft beneath his.
But it’s not the 1940s and it’s not Peggy he’s with.
“I’m so sorry,” he tells Natasha, her short hair the wrong color, the wrong style, and he steps away. She tenses her lips momentarily and he’s embarrassed and ashamed that he’d kissed those lips, that his imagination had run away with him.
“I loved a man once,” she tells his shoulder. “It… got complicated. You remind me of him sometimes.” He knows she understands what happened. Even if it’s a lie, which Steve doesn’t believe it is, he’s a little touched that she would show vulnerability to prevent him from feeling uncomfortable. “Did it make you feel better?”
“No,” he says, sadness coloring the word slightly.
“Me neither,” she breathes so quietly that part of him thinks he imagined it. “Well,” she adds, these words now meant for him. “If you’d like another lesson, you know where to find me.” She stalks out of the room without looking back and, if Steve didn’t know her better, he’d think she was flustered.
—-
He takes a week, but, when he approaches her as she’s drinking coffee and reading the morning paper, he would swear she almost smiled.