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They were on the sofa when she said it. Very casually, like you might say, "Let's have sushi for dinner," or, "It's supposed to rain this afternoon." Like that. He didn't even really understand at first - he heard the words and he knew what each one meant but he couldn't put them together into anything meaningful. He looked up from his sketchpad, his new idea that wasn't really coming out how he wanted, and said, "Huh?"
He met Natasha when she was still Natalia and he was still trying to pretend he knew what the hell he was doing. It took a few years for that to change, but they were both better off for it. She shed her old persona and chose a new one, and he admitted that nothing made sense and he was just doing the best he could with what he had. It was easier after that.
She wasn't a fortress, which is probably how a lot of people would describe her. She wasn't cold or closed off or anything, and she even said 'yes' the first time he asked her to get coffee. It wasn't anything that simple or cliched. She was a skyscraper. She was a labyrinth. She was the murder hotel that guy set up in Chicago at the World's Fair, with all the secret passages and hidden rooms. That's probably an awful thing to say about your girlfriend, but that is exactly what she was. She was a murder hotel and he was Ariadne. Or something.
They started slow. He didn't even try to hold her hand, not at first. He'd seen what she did when someone touched her without permission - she'd been in combat then, true, but why take that kind of chance? So instead he bought her coffee and pie and told her all the dirty jokes he could remember from the circus. She didn't laugh, until she did, and he didn't say anything when she took the last bite of his pie.
He kept asking her out, and she kept saying yes, and they ate at every diner in three of the five boroughs. He still hadn't touched her, except once when she tried to take the last bite of his pie for like the eighth time in a row and he slapped her hand away and then let her have it anyway because she looked at him with one eyebrow raised and he felt somehow guilty? Even though it was his pie? But that was it.
So, in the end, of course it was Natasha who kissed him. It wasn’t that he wasn’t brave enough, or anything like that. He just respected her boundaries too much to try. Like, if she had straight up said, “I want you to kiss me,” he totally would have. But he wasn’t taking chances, not with this. Not with her. So she kissed him first.
It was awesome.
The first time he said, “I love you,” she just looked at him. He had agonised over it for the better part of two weeks - he should tell her, no he shouldn’t, she deserved to know, she wouldn’t care, it would ruin everything, maybe she would smile, no she’d just stare at him, he was an idiot, yeah but he’d been her idiot for like six months now, so. He hadn’t really known what to expect going in, but once it happened, he felt strangely reassured by her reaction. Of course that would be her response. There was nothing else that could’ve happened, and nothing else he could’ve wanted. It was perfect.
She said it to him the next week, as casually as she possibly could and, conveniently, right as she was leaving his apartment. The door closed behind her and he smiled at it. He kept smiling at it for several minutes, and then he texted her something stupid and she sent him a picture of her rolling her eyes and he sat and smiled at his phone for a little while. She got antsy if he just sat and smiled at her, so he’d taken to smiling at things that were tangentially related to her. Like his front door and his phone. It seemed like a fair compromise.
Nothing really changed, from his perspective. Maybe it did for her, but she only occasionally talked about that kind of thing, so he couldn’t know for sure. She still spent the night with him, still woke up early to make coffee and then went back to bed until he’d made breakfast. She still called him лучник and he still called her girlie and she still wrinkled her nose at it. He still loved her, and he was pretty sure she loved him back. Maybe it wasn’t quite as dramatic as finding each other after 70-some years, or giving up your kingdom for someone, but it was theirs, and it was good. It was all he wanted.
There were… Difficulties, sometimes. Nothing major. She would disappear, sometimes, for a week or so, and then come back and not want to talk about it. Like it was just ok that he had no idea where she’d been, what she’d been doing, anything. That he’d worried - been terrified, really. Scared to death, the first time. He’d damn near knocked down Tony’s door, begging him to find her. He couldn’t, he’d finally admitted, but he couldn’t even enjoy that, because she was still gone. And she showed up five days later, slipping in his fucking window in the middle of the night like she thought she was the goddamned Batman or something, and he had just walked out. He would never - NEVER - raise his hand to someone he loved (he’d promised himself that much years and years ago,) but he couldn’t look at her just then. He couldn’t be there, with her, while she pretended it was all alright. He’d be able to later, he knew. Just not then. So he left.
When he came back, his apartment was spotless, there was fresh coffee brewing, and she was curled up on the sofa, wearing one of his t-shirts and clutching another to her chest. She was fast asleep, and Lucky was guarding her, and he wasn’t angry anymore. He couldn’t be. He drank a cup of coffee and then carried her into the bedroom, and she had the good grace to pretend to still be asleep as he curled around her and kissed her cheek.
The next time she left, he found a post-it note on his fridge with two X’s in black marker. That became their signal.
There were other problems. She could deal with a lot of really, really disgusting things - had dealt with them, in fact - but she couldn’t handle the pizza boxes. In a normal sitting, he could eat about half of a take-out pizza. He tended to leave the rest in the box overnight (or over-afternoon, whatever) and come back to it the next time he was hungry. For some reason, this was too much for her. Bullets? Fine. Fiery explosions? Ok. Aliens? Not a problem. Half-stale pizza in the bedroom? Line crossed.
They went back and forth on it for two weeks. It was his apartment. Ok, but she slept there regularly now. But it was still fresh , it wasn’t like he was leaving them out for a week. But the entire bedroom smelled like pizza, constantly . Yeah but how was that a problem? Because it’s a bed room. So what, it should smell like beds? Better than a goddamn pizza.
In the end, they compromised, which surprised everyone except them. For some reason, everyone else was absolutely convinced that, if there was a disagreement, Natasha was going to come out victorious. Which is maybe why Tony and Pepper were separated and talking but not really talking, and Steve and Bucky were always chasing after one another but never quite connecting, and Thor and Jane were constantly embroiled in some life-altering choice or another. Because they didn’t fucking know how to compromise.
He only left pizza boxes in the kitchen, and only one at a time, and if it was too much for her, she could stick them in the fridge and he wouldn’t complain about the pizza being cold. Fucking compromise, you know? Not that difficult.
“I said…”
“Yeah, no, I know what you said. You said… But huh?”
“I don't know how to answer that, luchnik .”
He took a deep breath, running one hand back through his hair and curling the other around her ankle.
“Why’d you say it?”
She shrugged, and he knew she was only blushing because she wanted to be.
“Because. It's ok, you can just say no. I'm not playing twenty questions about it.”
“How about four questions?”
She huffed, blowing a curl away from her face and nodding.
“Why'd you say it?”
“Because I meant it.”
“Are you absolutely sure?”
“I wouldn't have said it otherwise, and you know that.”
“Me, though?”
“You. Of course you.”
“Would I have to wear a suit?”
“You… I don't know, luchnik . You're an adult, what do you want to do?”
He shrugged, grinning suddenly, and dragged her over to him.
“I know I said four, but can I ask one more?”
She nodded, and he kissed her nose, quickly, because he couldn't not.
“Can we have pizza instead of cake, if we decorate it and like, put the little dolls on it?”
She smacked his arm, and he laughed and cuddled her close and mumbled, ‘that's not a no,’ before he kissed her.
“Alright, let's get married.”