Chapter Text
Steve turns onto his back, lying on his bed with the book he had most definitely been reading for the past half hour and sighs heavily.
The day had been going long and dreary, though he hadn’t minded, as opposed to horrifically violent. It was just slightly (brain numbingly) boring. There just really hadn’t been much going on, with half the team gone from the tower there was a rare silence that he was allowed to; though, he can’t say he’d tried very hard to look around and socialise, it was a large tower after all.
Nevertheless, it was a quiet day in the tower. Half heartedly, he eyes the cover of the book with a finger wedged inside marking his page, tracing the letters of the title with another. Gold leaf on black. Lord of the Rings. Buck would’ve lost his shit seeing this series. Another sigh.
Maybe I should draw something, but what? Maybe go on a run? I could watch that movie everyone’s always talking about, start on ‘Star Wars?’
Yes, that’s what he’ll do, look for the dvd’s and watch the movies, maybe get a snack on the way.
–
Natasha is sitting at the bench with her earphones in at the kitchen island with a carton of strawberries, tapping her fingers on the surface and tapping her fingers on the screen. Her eyes flicker up for a moment, golden lashes fluttering, and Steve recalls for the first time they’re usually black. “Hang on a sec, Steve just came in,” before fully lifting her head and taking out an earbud to Steve walking into the kitchen.
“Hey, what’s up, I’m on the phone with Clint” she smiles.
Out of all the people Steve could’ve wandered upon in the kitchen, Natasha was the one he was most glad to see, perhaps one of the people he would be most glad to see on any day in the 21st century. She was determined but calm, insightful in a way that gained her a deep perception of anyone she met, something Steve had always a great respect for and hadn’t guessed would appreciate more so than ever as America’s Star Spangled Man!
“Yeah, hey,” he smiles back, leaning on the counter. “How’s your day been?”
“Honestly? Completely boring. I’ve been on the phone all day.” She unplugs her earphones and tinny background noise plays out of her phone. “Look, Cap’s here!” she says, and turns the screen to face him, showing Steve a slightly delayed and blurry version of Clint Barton’s face.
“Hey Steve, how’s it going?” The archer’s voice comes out of the phone, crackly and a few seconds after his face moves. Stubble dusted his jaw and his hair was… different. Not exactly shaved in enough places to say it was shorter but shaved in enough places to say it was definitely hair and it had been cut.
There were many awkward greetings on Steve’s end, not quite knowing how to hold a casual conversation with him, making him belatedly realise that he’d never spoken to the man one on one. How’s the family! That’s what people say right? How’s the family? To friends they hadn’t known had a hidden separate life till a few weeks ago?
“You don’t have to yell, Steve, I know he’s getting old but he’s got the volume up,” Natasha says quietly, smirking up at him. She had a glimmer in her eye and her hair was fuzzy, wearing a hoodie Steve was almost certain was too big to be her own, no doubt taken from Tony or even himself. He had enough clothes she’d bought for him to not noticed
“I can still hear you!” Clint retorts.
“Can you now! Well it’s news to me.”
He rolls his eyes, “Thanks, Tash, I really treasure this friendship.” Yeah! Yeah, no they’re great, you wanna see them?” He doesn’t wait for a response, which Steve gave enthusiastically all the same, before a young girl (Lila?) runs into frame and throws herself, full force into her dad’s arms and is lifted high up, squealing, and brought onto Barton’s leg.
“Hey! How are you? Wanna say hi to Auntie Nat?”
“Yes! Hi Auntie Nat!” Lila shouts out, waving fast enough that her hand disappears into a hazy rainbow above her arm.
“Hi Lila!” Natasha laughs, wiggling her fingers up.
“And that there,” Clint says, pointing to the screen, “is Steve. He came to our house a while ago, do you remember?” he asks, leaning to the side, so he can make eye contact with his daughter. She shakes his head back, grinning slightly sheepishly. “Alright, well he did, you wanna say hi to Steve?”
“Hi Steve!” This time slightly quieter, with all the politeness and resemblance a ten year old can have of someone about to shake your hand, though her waving doesn’t cease even a fraction.
“Hi Lila!” He replies, smiling brightly, his wave matching hers, “how have you been?”
“Good, and you?” the girl replies, Steve can tell, with practiced poshness and easy confidence.
“I’m very well, thank you Miss Barton.” He dips his head at her and she smiles shyly. God, Steve thinks, kids are so cute.
“Hey, Lila, you know Captain America? The superhero?”
“The man in that movie you and mum were watching after me and Coop went to bed?”
“How do you know that?” Clint questions, cocking his head. Lila giggles at her dad, bashfully pulling the collar of her t-shirt up over her mouth. Her giggling for some reason has Steve smiling with her like an idiot at the camera before he even realises it.
“Yeah, okay, that one. Well, did you know that Steve is Captain America?” Both Natasha and Steve snort at that, the latter about to bury his face in his hands in embarrassment.
Truly there was no need to bring this into the conversation. Sure, Steve possibly was ‘Captain America,’ but different and less than how Tony Stark was Iron Man. Steve got beat up in back alleys, tired and too old for everything, despite being in his twenties and, to the dismay of many fans, rather dry in character; Captain America was an absurd aggregation of patriotism, inspiration to thousands and chastised you for getting into detention.
So really, ‘Steve is Captain America’ is a subjective statement.
Or maybe it might’ve been possible to a certain degree that Steve didn’t like the guy too much or his association with him and the blurring lines between them.
He sees Natasha raise an eyebrow at him and realises he’s probably reached his expression of ‘pained concentration,’ that she spent no little time mocking him for.
Lila’s eyes go wide and her mouth falls open turning her head wildly from side to side looking between Clint and Steve.
“Whaaat. No he’s not, Captain America wears blue and has a helmet,” she says, dragging out each vowel or bringing it up an octave.
“No, no, I’m not joking, trust me, Steve is Captain America,” Barton laughs, near hysterical.
“He is Lila, your dad’s telling the truth,” Natasha says, biting down on her lip to stop from laughing. They were both enjoying this way too much.
Wanda floats across the background of the screen and Steve leaps at his chance, calling out her name. She stops in her tracks just outside the camera’s vision and leans backward to warmly say hi. Holding Nathaniel in her arms, she has him flailing his fist around for them too.
“What are you guys talking about?” she says coming closer to the phone.
“We’re telling Lila that Steve’s Captain America,” Clint supplies. Wanda bites back a laugh and rolls her eyes, looking at Steve sympathetically, but apparently not sympathetic enough she was going to save him.
“Yeah, your dad’s right, that’s Captain America.”
“What! No, you guys are both lying,” Lila responds while looking between them, squinting her eyes. Poor kid looks so confused. “If he is Captain America, where’s his shield?”
He decides to step in, if only because Lila looks like her head was about to explode (and not to any level out of self preservation, why would anyone think that?).
“That is a very good question, Lila. Isn't it Barton ? How can Steve be good ol’ Cap if I don’t even have the shield?”
The archer smiles, seemingly in excitement at the chance to answer that question, and opens his mouth about to respond, the same time his daughter prepares another question and the screen freezes, trapping both of them before they can speak in remotely bewildered expressions. The frame changes to another of Clint lunging to the camera, eyes wide, and then the screen beeps a rather dismal note and goes black. Steve sees Natasha wrinkle her nose, close the app and shoot off a quick text, before placing her phone face down. His brow crinkles and he half heartedly wonders whether he should be concerned.
“What-” Steve begins, gesturing weakly where his words fail.
“Hm? Oh, it’s fine, his phone probably just died cause he can never remember to charge it on time,” Natasha supplies. “What were you here for before you got pulled in and interrogated by a ten-year-old?”
“Um.” Right. Oh, right, Star Trek. “I was gonna get something to eat and go ask Stark where the DVDs were so I could watch.. Star Trek? Wars?”
Natasha looks so taken aback and Steve near apologises for just existing. If it had been anyone else here he wouldn’t have felt anything beyond mild irritation and the obvious discomfort with the constant reminder that he was out of time. But it was Natasha and surely she wasn’t judging him for not exactly being up to date with pop culture.
“Woah, okay, so Star Wars and Star Trek are completely different things. I couldn’t tell you the first thing about Star Trek, but I’ve seen Star Wars, along with at least half of the population.”
“Oh, okay.”
“What do you want for food?”
“I don’t mind.” Thinking for a moment, he nods at the strawberries she’d been finishing off, “I wouldn’t mind some strawberries?”
Natasha huffs a laugh, irritating a red wavy-curly strand of hair. “Sure, but these are mine so you can’t have them, there should be more in the fridge.”
Turning to open said fridge, he takes a moment to look at the photos stuck up. There were drawings of wildly varying quality from Wanda’s 21st birthday when everyone (besides from himself) had gotten drunk and took turns drawing another team member, the others guessing who it was afterward. Steve chuckles, pulling down a page of miscellaneous, red squiggles and either the McDonald's logo or a badly drawn sea bird with a smiley face underneath to show Natasha.
“How drunk were you guys that night?” He laughs, incredulous.
Natasha groans, putting her forehead on the table. “Never again. All I remember is Clint gagging over the side of the sofa while it was floating with all of us on it.” She shudders. “And everything is to the soundtrack of Thor bellowing his Asgardian drinking song, but all I remember are the English parts, so really it’s more like Thor repeating ‘she sings, she sings, she sings,’ until I go mad. I don’t even think he was drunk.”
Steve’s eyes crinkle as the story goes on, eventually throwing his head back and laughing, he’d forgotten that part. He grabs a mini shield magnet (from the officially issued Avengers set of six) and re-sticks the drawing to the fridge. There was even a ‘Wanda’ written in perfect, neat cursive at the bottom of the page, probably from the morning after.
There was a polaroid of Bruce with his glasses hung around his chin and another of Natasha, Clint and Agent Coulson.
Someone had printed out a photo they’d taken of a drink tap they’d found on the New York subway; it had Captain America crudely graffitied around it and it looked like Tony, still in his suit, was bent over drinking. How tasteful for the communal fridge.
Why he was in the New York underground in his suit, knowing full well he can fly? Well Steve wouldn’t know, this was his first time seeing it.
He contemplates taking it down but the absurdity of it almost made him laugh out loud, so he moves on, sweeping a quick look over everything else, more photos, stickers and someone had unscrunched Steve’s doodles of the team from meetings and stuck them up.
The door slips open with the tacky sound and the fridge appears– empty.
There was a lone egg and a handful of macaroni in some water spotlighted in the cold light. He really didn’t feel like cooking anything so he just closes over the depressing showcase and returns to inspecting the door front.
“What’s up? You look like a kicked puppy, more so than usual,” Natasha asks, looking up at him with her chin on her hands.
“What? I don’- no, it’s okay, it’s just- the fridge is empty”
The assassin narrows her eyes with genuine confusion and overpowering scepticism before they shut tight and she bends over the counter, hands over her face, her shoulder shaking as she laughs.
“Right! Right! I’m so sorry.” She clears her throat and Steve feels ever so slightly offended at how hard she had to try to compose herself. “Truly sincerely sorry, I just remembered that Bruce and Tony came in earlier and fully ransacked it just before you came in. For the name of science I’m sure.” She laughs again, either at the memory or just plainly at Steve. “Here, I’m sure we’ve got chicken nuggets or frozen fruit or something; it’s a crew of genetically enhanced superheroes, surely we’ve got ice-cream or at least some kale sitting around.” The spy hops off her chair and rounds the kitchen island, shooing Steve out of the way so she can rummage through the freezer. They swap places, Steve taking her seat and Natasha elbows deep in freezer bags. The clanking and rustling is weirdly loud, the hollow drawers clash with the walls and bitesized items frozen solid clinking against each other until Natasha exclaims in success and jumps up, holding a small tub of ice cream high above her head.
“Rum and raisins? Again? Who keeps buying this?” she says, with what Steve thinks is an unwarranted look of disgust on her face. He’d seen the woman, first hand, down his offensive excuse of a cocktail, cloudy egg white streaks and all (it was bad), and a formerly popular ice cream flavour threw her off?
“Actually, better question, who’s choosing to eat this every time it’s bought?” She sighs, then stills, squints her eyes and shakes the ice cream. Steve wants to make a comment about how even The Black Widow’s determination couldn’t will the flavour to change, but holds back, invested in what she was doing. She reads the lid carefully with a brow raised and then opens it, looking suspiciously inside. Upon seeing the contents, her eyes widened and she full body snorts before pressing her lips together and taking a deep breath to smooth over her face.
“What?” Steve asks instantly, trying to hide his eagerness.
“Hm? Oh, no, it’s nothing,” Natasha responds, her features very carefully placid in the way he’d spent too long trying to immortalise in sketches and had learnt to be delicately masked amusement. Or irritation: it was really the luck of the draw whether he guessed right. She closes over the ice cream and bends to return it to the fridge. “I didn’t find anything.”
“Wha- You- What about the ice-?”
“BUT, I did find some frozen berries we can blend!”
Flabbergasted wasn’t a word Steve found himself looking to very often, but now it felt like the only way to articulate his state of mind.
“Nat. What was in the ice cream?” he says in a low voice, giving Natasha his sternest ‘Captain America is asking you a question' look. She eyes him back with equal, if not more, intensity and dangerously tilting her head, she replies, “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
One would think that after all the sighing that he’d done today, Steve would’ve run out of oxygen by now. But there’s always more where that came from and he feels himself deflate, exhaling all the air out of his lungs. In no universe would Natasha’s murder glare ever not one up his own and he really didn’t feel like challenging an international super spy for answers today so he just has to let the ice cream debacle go and move on.
–
The blender clatters in complaint to the solid chunks of fruit and ice that had been tossed inside with a generous squeeze of honey. The sound has Steve near falling out of his chair and Natasha laughing at him until it eventually smoothes out to a drone and comes to a stop. She scoops out two bowls of sorbet and slides one across to Steve, throwing a spoon at him to follow. He says a quick thanks and puts his spoon into the frozen puree, pushing away from the table.
“I suppose I should get the films now?”
“Doesn’t sound like you want to,” she observes. “I know where the DVDs are.”
When he waits for her to continue, she doesn’t say anything more so he has to add, “Can you show me?”...So I can watch the movie?”
Apparently he’d done something correctly and played right into her hand, because Natasha smiles, cat-like, the corners of her mouth curling up at his comment, strangely reminding him of an octopus’ winding tentacles.
“Only if I can watch them with you.”
She then promptly eats a spoonful of sorbet, humming in content and Steve ducks his head, chuckling to himself because he truly can’t comprehend how Natasha Romanoff is a real person.
“Yes Nat, of course you can watch Star Wars with me,” he says, knowing damn well she would have, no matter what he said, but more than happy to consent.
“Perfect.”