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This holiday party was honestly one of the last places James wanted to be. Not because it was an ugly sweater party, or that he didn’t want to socialize with anybody. It was because this was the first holiday without her. Without the person that made him feel whole and worth something, even if he didn’t feel like he was good enough for her. He wasn’t sure how many times he thought to himself that she was better off without him.
Maybe he’d get lucky and she wouldn’t be at the party that essentially every single Avenger or person who was once an Avenger was invited to--the same party that Natasha’s been to every year for years. She totally wasn’t going to come.
Of course, that dream was crushed when he went into the kitchen to drop off his store bought cookies and she was there in the kitchen, organizing the food people brought.
“I’ll just…set this here?” He said as he slowly lower the box onto the counter.
She nodded at him, “Yeah, that will be fine.”
He set the cookies down completely on the counter and started for the door. Only Natasha had the same idea and the two of them were now awkwardly standing in the doorway. James laughed nervously and motioned for her to go through the door first.
Almost out of habit, he followed her across the living room and stood next to her when she stopped. She looked a bit surprised to see that he had followed her but smiled at him anyway. “Not feeling like mingling yet?”
He shook his head. “Not quite yet.” He wasn’t a man of many friends, just a few that he had remained close with the past few years—like Steve and Sam. He thought when he spotted one of the few that it would be best to leave her be. They were supposed to be near strangers after all.
Natasha started to laugh and he looked over at her, feeling confused. “What’s so funny?”
She pointed up above them and laughed some more. “We ended up under the mistletoe!
His heart immediately sunk and his face and neck turned a bright red. “Ha! I didn’t think anyone would hang that up this year.”
She grinned up at him. “You gotta kiss me, Barnes."
He felt like his heart was going to beat out of his chest. “Oh, no…I couldn’t.”
“Come on, Barnes.” She nudged his side with her elbow. “It’s just a little mistletoe. Or are you too scared to kiss me?”
James laughed and shook his head. “No, I’m not too scared. There are just a lot of people here."
A lot of those people knew exactly what had happened to the two of them and were probably surprised they were even talking.
“A little kiss never hurt anyone.”
He wanted to tell her that maybe this one would, but she wouldn’t know what he meant. The last time he had kissed her wasn’t meant to be the last. None of their kisses were meant to be the last. But maybe this could be their last real kiss and he could finally move on from all the what if’s that had been stirring around his brain the past year. Just one last kiss.
“Okay, you win Romanoff. And only because of this damn mistletoe.” He gestured upward at it as he turned toward her. He hadn’t even kissed her yet and was already regretting it. This was only going to cause him more pain over losing her.
“Are you just going to stare at me? Or are you going to kiss me?"
Taking a step toward her, he cupped her cheeks in his hands, holding her like she was the most precious thing in the world. Her hands moved to hold his biceps, leaning up toward him. Their lips pressed together in a kiss far too tender for two who were supposed to be strangers. He squeezed his eyes shut tight, like kissing her was the most painful thing he’s ever done.
After a moment, the two of them pulled away from the kiss and he let out a shaky breath. He never thought he’d ever be able to kiss her again after what Novokov did to her. Taking a step back from her, he kept his eyes down, afraid to look in her eyes.
She reached out and gently touched her arm. It took everything in him not to flinch away from her touch. “Are you okay, James?”
His eyes still looking at the ground, he shook his head. “No, sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”
Her hand rubbed up and down his arm a few times to try and comfort him. “Did I do something wrong?"
“No, it’s not that. I’m just missing someone I lost.”
Natasha furrowed her brow and gave his arm a gentle squeeze. “I’m so sorry, James. I had no idea.”
He looked up and saw Steve watching the two of them from across the room. Steve was the last person he wanted to see him kiss her. He didn’t want anyone else’s pity over losing Natasha anymore and he knew Steve was going to want to talk about it later.
“It’s okay. Please don’t worry about it.” He finally looked over at her and gave her a soft smile. “I—um, it was nice talking to you. I’m going to go get myself a drink.” And before she could really respond, he was headed back to the kitchen. He couldn’t handle Natasha and Steve looking at him like he was some abandoned puppy in the rain.
Once he was on the other side of the kitchen door, he had to take a deep breath to hold back a sob. He was not going to cry at this damn ugly sweater holiday party. He reminded himself that he was done crying over her because that wasn’t going to fix her. It wasn’t going to bring her back to him and it most definitely was not going to get her memories back.
He poured himself a double shot of whiskey and downed it in one go. He was going to need to be slightly intoxicated if he was going to be able to finish this rest of this party.