Work Text:
He knew everyone thought it was the technology, the instantaneous wide reach of information, the sheer amount of everything. But Steve had dealt with suddenly using previously unfamiliar gadgets with new, impossible seeming technological abilities before, making that not half so jarring as some of the other things.
One thing, in particular.
And when he thought about it, Steve admitted to himself that the technology might have a distinct part in it, but the reality of the fact was just that culture changed, over seventy years.
And nobody touched each other anymore.
Sure, there were handshakes and brushes as you passed by someone, but nothing that really mattered, really meant something.
Steve had never thought of himself as a particularly physically affectionate person, but after spending close to a decade alone, frozen in the ocean -- it would have been nice to have tactile reminders that that was no longer the case.
No, not nice. Amazing, glorious, grounding. Necessary.
People existed in context of each other, and all of Steve's context had eroded away, faded like the wartime photographs until there was almost nothing left to distinguish.
And maybe, maybe he had a new place on this team of broken, extraordinary people; but without something to pull him into the reality of it, everything felt distant and surreal.
Meaningless.
The only time he came in contact with anyone was during battle or sparring, and it disturbed him how much he looked forward to that, just for the touch.
But how was it, that he could walk through the streets of a city like New York, and never touch anyone?
He spent a lot of time wondering how you know that what you were experiencing was real, if there's nothing to verify it.
After the battle against the Chitauri, he ached to slap them on the back, pull them into one armed hugs.
They go out to eat instead.
And maybe he should have been relieved afterwards, to go home and sleep it off.
But his apartment yawned empty, silent.
Steve never thought he'd miss cramming twice the amount of guys into a tent than it was technically supposed to hold, especially considering that Dum Dum snored, and Bucky had a tendency to kick. But anything was better than this, with only his memory for company and cold comfort.
They'd been a team for a few weeks when Natasha almost died.
Which wasn't to say there hadn't been close calls before; but she was right in front of him and all Steve could think was that he had never touched her. Didn't even shake her hand, when they met. And she only sparred with Clint.
She could have died in that moment, and he never would have known if she ran cold like she seemed to want people to believe, like winter flowed through her veins.
Or maybe she was as warm as the flame of her hair seemed to suggest, with that burning intensity that never quite went away whether she was battling for her life or playing cards with Clint and Bruce.
She looked soft, but Steve knew better than to call her anything but deadly. The smooth skin he saw was likely crossed with scars, every single one a proof of a time she had come out the victor. Which could only mean that her challenger was dead; paid the price for having injured her.
Natasha was clever and sarcastic and strong and he had never even touched her.
She could have been a figment of his imagination, for all he knew.
Which was irrational in more ways than he could name, but it didn't stop Steve from chasing her down once they were back on the Helicarrier and she was headed to her rooms.
He caught up with her just before her hand touched the door, and gave Natasha absolutely no warning before pulling her into a hug.
Steve figured distantly that he was probably squeezing a little too hard, and the damned star on his chest couldn't exactly be comfortable. But he'd forgotten what it felt like; to have someone else there with such surety.
She smelled like battle; gunpowder and grit with the copper tang of blood near drowning out the light, herbal, feminine scent that still clung to her skin from her having sprayed it on that morning.
He could feel her heartbeat in his fingertips, underneath her catsuit, her ribs rising with each breath.
Was this the world he lived in? That he had genuinely forgotten what it was to exist with another person?
Natasha hadn't moved, and Steve was fairly certain he should have let go several seconds ago.
As a kid, sometimes his ma would fast when things got rough, closing it with a prayer of thanks and a plea to ease whatever troubles they -- or their neighbors, or city, or country -- had before again she ate. Steve was a frail and sickly little boy, and when he asked if he could try, she only let him fast for one meal for fear that he would faint dead away in the street if she let him go any longer. Even so, he had never been so hungry in his life as when he sat down for dinner that night and ate with the fervent desperation of a man sentenced to hang at dawn.
Even in the war, with rationing and never enough food to go around for all the soldiers to be filled -- especially not him, with his metabolism -- he couldn't think of a time where he had hungered more than the day his mother let him fast with her.
Until now, when he hadn't hugged anyone in seventy years and Natasha had almost disappeared right before his eyes.
After so long, it's almost too good; near overwhelming with how right it was to be close, to be connected with another person.
"Steve, I'm fine." She said, somewhat muffled against his chest, and made to move away.
There was a desperate noise of protest low in his throat, and she stilled.
A few more moments passed, and his thoughts had fallen into a repetitive loop: stay. stay. stay. stay. stay.
Her voice wasn't half so vehement when she spoke again, as close to gentle as she probably got.
"But you're not, are you?"
Steve swallowed and his fingers twitched tighter on her back before he shook his head.
Steve didn't pay any attention to where they were going when she said "Come on," and stepped back to key open the spartan quarters she used when on the carrier.
Natasha led him, fingers touching his elbow, to her bathroom and sat him on the side of the tub before pulling out a first aid kit and perching herself next to him.
Steve wanted to tell her she didn't have to, because he would heal perfectly well on his own thanks to the serum, but the words slipped back down his throat because her knee was nudging against his and she had a hand on his arm as the other reached up with a disinfectant wipe to a nasty gash on his cheekbone.
It stung, of course, but the two points of soft warmth took the edge off any pain there was, and the nostalgia of ritual dulled whatever was left of it.
He and the guys had patched each other up after skirmishes; quick fixes for things before they got back to base and swearing up a storm as their wounds were stitched together, even though everyone had a grin plastered on their face, the glow of victory keeping them from letting out anything but exchanging cheerful, colorful curses.
Natasha smiled rarely, and it was with an expression of solemn concentration that she tended to his hurts, lips ever so slightly pursed.
She didn't even ask for permission when she undid the snap at the neck of his uniform, pulling the sides away from each other and discarding the top part onto the floor before rucking up the tight, long-sleeved sort of undershirt so that he was barechested before her, blood smeared and crusted from various scrapes and gashes along his arms and torso.
Steve knew Natasha was well aware of his accelerated healing, that he needed this about as much as Fury needed something with two eyepieces.
She was doing this for him, and not out of any concern for his injuries.
He hadn't been aware of how tense he was until it was leaving his muscles, relaxed by the feel of quick fingers against his skin, of having someone there.
When Natasha had finished with him, she was about to put the kit away, but Steve caught her arm, pulled out another disinfectant wipe and swiped gently at her split brow. Her lips quirk upward for a brief moment, and she turned to let him get at the slice on her upper arm, fabric of her suit torn away.
Steve was sure she must have more injuries somewhere, but she took the kit from where he had it balanced on one leg and set it on the floor. Her hand touched his knee, and Steve looked down to see the milky white of her skin against the blue of his uniform to confirm she was really there before meeting her eyes.
If the hug had been overwhelming, Steve had no idea what to call it when she kissed him.
He quickly gave up on trying to find the term for it, and focused his attention to where her mouth met his, soft and reassuring.
Steve was bone-tired from combat, covered in dirt and sweat, and both of them have lips that are fairly chapped.
It might have been the best thing to happen to him since waking up.
The whole thing was so intense, with fading adrenaline and injuries stinging, limbs sore and the first person he'd touched in a way that mattered at all. Steve hoped he didn't start crying.
And then-- oh. Gee.
Natasha was climbing into his lap and the zipper and buckles on her catsuit were cold, but the rest of her was as warm, as alive as he was. And this really, really hadn't been what Steve had been looking for -- he'd have been fine with the hug, probably. Maybe. -- but her hands were on either side of his face and she was pressed up against his chest, smearing the antibiotic cream that she had so carefully applied minutes before with her lips warm brushing against his, and Steve was so drunk on the feel of another person that he wouldn't have been able to stop her if he'd wanted to.
Which he really, really didn't.
Natasha didn't exactly strike him as a cuddler, and this might have been the only way she knew how to help -- which didn't explain how she knew what he needed in the first place, but he had gotten used to being caught off guard by Natasha -- and he wasn't going to refuse that in a million years; couldn't refuse it.
Steve sent her silent thanks, not wanting to attempt to speak when her tongue was sliding over his lips, but thankful all the same that she gives him time just to hold her and kiss her and be together. He'd been able to say with absolute certainty before that he'd been kissed twice, and now had lost all sense of how many it was except for the fact that it was a hell of a lot more than two. How did you even count kisses, when each one bled into the next?
It's an interesting question, but not half so interesting as Natasha pulling Steve to his feet and walking him backwards, letting him squeeze tightly to her hands even as she stretched up and he bent down to remain in contact, to sigh into each others' mouths.
Steve should have known Natasha would have no shame, and it was almost businesslike, the way she peeled herself free from her catsuit to stand in front of him in her underclothes.
His first instinct was to look away, flushed, and it was only then the weight of what was happening seemed to settle.
Had he really been so ready to sleep with her, just so he didn't feel alone?
"You don't have to do this for me." He muttered, self-conscious and suddenly very embarrassed. All of this, because he wanted to touch someone again?
"Steve," there it was again; that almost-gentleness. He didn't look up from the tightly looped carpet, even when she laid a hand on his cheek.
But he leaned into it all the same.
"Yes I do."
Natasha wasn't one to do anything out of obligation, and Steve might be beginning to understand just as she pushed him back onto the narrow bed, a bunk built for one. But maybe, just maybe when she said she had to, Natasha meant because of a personal desire, because she didn't want him unhappy.
And that thought was almost as good as having her close to him, when there wasn't anything but skin and there's enough contact to make up for all the months he lacked.
Natasha was wild, dangerous and beautiful -- like an animal barely contained in its cage. She moved like one too, smooth and practiced and nuzzling into his neck in a way that reminded him distinctly of cats. Catching right on the tail of that thought is something else, and Steve had no idea where he learned it, but he'd heard somewhere that the feline tendency to brush and butt up against their people was a form of scent-marking.
The thought of Natasha marking him as her territory had Steve huffing out a short chuckle, which caused her to sit up and frown down at him.
"I know I'm not good at this, but you don't have to laugh."
Steve didn't exactly want to explain his train of thought, and was bewildered by her self-depreciation. His fingers curled around her wrist, suddenly afraid that she would leave -- even if it was her quarters they were in -- and he would again be alone.
"No, I'm sorry, it's not you. You're perfect. Please."
Natasha angled her head to look down at him, a sort of bewildered respect in her eyes, as if she couldn't quite figure out why he was there -- which made two of them, but Steve had the feeling they had conflicting definitions of what 'there' referred to specifically.
She was being slow and thorough; not quite tender, but almost. Maybe that was what she referred to, when she said she wasn't good at it. Being soft and quiet, intimately close.
That thought had Steve's heart swelling with more gratitude -- now so filled with it he thought he would burst. Because Natasha was there, and she wasn't used to doing it like this -- though you wouldn't have known. It seemed absolutely natural, the way she combed through his hair, slid hands down his chest and looped arms around his neck to pull them together until they were pressed together as if she never planned on letting him go.
Even if he knew that wasn't true, it was comforting all the same.
When he was lying with his head on her ribs, one arm up under her shoulders and the other around her waist, legs propped up against her she spoke, fingers playing idly with his hair -- and maybe nobody had ever done that for him, but he was pretty sure he liked it -- "Feel better?"
There wasn't any affectionate concern, as one would expect after having shared so much, but it was Natasha. And Natasha was business.
"Yes."
"Good."
That too was unadorned with emotion; just something to say. Then again most of what she said was flat, carefully measured.
Steve took a deep breath, somewhat unsteady, and prepared to leave. Even if this moment was so much more real than anything he'd experienced for months, he knew he had to leave.
"Thank you."
He expected her to brush it off, or make a minimal acknowledgement.
But Steve had gotten used to being surprised by Natasha.
"You can stay for a while. If you want."
He looked up at her and she met his eyes for a moment before looking away, as if she feared he would be able to read too much in them. Her expression was impassive, but he watched her all the same before replying, soft and so very grateful.
"I think I'd like that."
Natasha's gaze flicked back to him for a moment, but she said nothing.
Even so, Steve didn't think he imagined the response -- I'd like that too -- in the way she brought her other hand up to his cheek, thumb brushing just under the cut she had treated earlier before she found his hand, laced her fingers with his.
He had the feeling that in the near future, he would be gaining some context to exist in.