It's snowing in New York. The window is cold, and Natasha doesn't care, because it's snowing in New York.
She is sitting on the floor, her arms folded around her tucked up legs, leaning against the windows, watching the snow fly on Christmas Eve.
It's snowing, in New York, on Christmas Eve.
She hates how the snow will look in about two hours, when it's done and the people and the cars and the dirt have their way with it. But now? Right now, the city looks like a dream. The impossible dream so many people came looking for. In her perch, high above the city in Midtown, Natasha thinks that the city that never sleeps has never looked better.
There is a tree—enormous, over-decorated, obnoxious, completely Stark—behind her. There are presents under the tree. Some are for her, some are from her. But she doesn't give a damn about the presents or the tree. She has money. She has stuff.
She's feeling lonely. While it's snowing, in New York, on Christmas Eve.
No one should be lonely, but absolutely no one should be lonely under these specific circumstances. Which is a ridiculous thought, and when did she get so damn sentimental?
Tony and Pepper would come home in the morning—and when did the Tower become 'home'?—and Clint was gone until after New Year's. Terrorist cells didn't take holidays. Steve was at church, Thor was off-world. Maria and Sam and Bucky would come over in the morning as well.
Dammit. She's missing her ragtag little family. She was definitely losing her touch.
The snow is flying thick and fast; a proper Christmas snow that she hasn't seen since she was a little girl. The lights of the city make it glow, a yellowish haze descending upon the urban sprawl. She's only dressed in one of Tony's Black Sabbath shirts and someone's sweatpants—her boys all seemed to have the same waistline measurements, so keeping track of which pants she's nicked from whom is more difficult than the shirts—but she suddenly has the urge to be outside in the thick of it. She gets to her feet and pads over to the door to the deck.
There are already a few inches piled in drifts around the deck. Her feet are cold, snow sliding between her toes, and the hems of her sweats are soaked through, but there is snow and it's Christmas Eve and she's not a little girl anymore but somewhere deep down inside her is a child laughing with joy because it feels magical. She lifts her face to the sky and sticks out her tongue, catching snowflakes. "You know they're not ripe until January," a voice says behind her.
She laughs. "Did Darcy marathon a bunch of Christmas cartoons with you after all?"
Steve's heavy footsteps make the snow crunch. "Yeah, she corralled me. I liked the Claymation ones best."
"There's Easter and Fourth of July ones too, she'll probably make you watch them," she says.
"You look cold," he offers.
She smiles at him. Her feet are numb, but she doesn't care. "I am."
Steve's eyebrow ticks up in that way when he understands something. "Well, next time you need cheering up, I won't book you a beach vacation. You'll go to the Alps or Antarctica or something."
"I do like penguins," she murmurs, turning her face back up to the sky.
There are snowflakes in her hair, and on her eyelashes, but she is happy. Steve crunches a few steps away from her, brushing the snow from the railing and leaning on it, watching the snow fall across his city. "This is probably nothing compared to what you probably had," she comments.
He shrugs. "Hit or miss. Contrary to popular belief, the world was not coated in snow from November until April."
She idly scoops up a handful of snow, packing it into a ball. "There was more of it though, I bet."
"Yeah. But we had pollution problems too—" Steve cuts off his sentence with a yelp as she pelts him in the back of the head with her snowball. "Oh, you're going to regret that."
It's Christmas Eve, it's snowing, and she is having a snowball fight on the top floor of a skyscraper in New York with Captain America. She is soaked to the skin and doesn't remember the last time she has laughed this much, and his dress clothes are probably ruined, but she thinks he might not remember laughing this much in a long time either. She collapses into what's left of the snow and makes a feeble attempt at a snow angel as more flakes fall onto her, before she's being bodily hauled up and carried back into the Tower. "You're going to get sick," he tells her.
"Nonsense," she replies: she doesn't know the last time she was sick.
"Still."
He sets her down, and they look at one another for a moment before dissolving into laughter again. Her hair is a limp, matted mess. His nose and cheeks and ears are bright red. Her feet might be courting frostbite. But this is their life, and right now it is good.
Natasha leans against the wall for support, and looks up at him again. She grins wider. "You forgot," she says, pointing up.
Steve follows her gaze, and immediately sighs. Tony has been planting mistletoe in every room of the Tower, sometimes multiple sprigs in one room (this one has five), because he's an ass and thinks it's funny to make everyone kiss. Natasha is very good about making wide circles around every room, always watching the ceiling to make sure he hasn't invented a mechanism that will lower a surprise sprig if one trips the trigger. Steve has already kissed just about everyone. It seems that Natasha is his last conquest. "Guess I get to find out if you've been practicing," she teases.
Steve rolls his eyes. "Like I've had much of a choice."
She punches him in the shoulder for good measure, and then stands on her tiptoes. He bends down to accommodate her, and their lips meet for the second time. There's a soft chiming somewhere, and JARVIS quietly announces that it is midnight and that he wishes them a merry Christmas.
Natasha feels warm. It's snowing, on Christmas Day, and she is kissing Steve Rogers. This is their life, and right now it is good. When they part, an absurdly long time later, his face is still red, but she thinks it's not from the cold. "Hey," she says lightly, "let's get out of these clothes and change the tags on everyone's presents except ours."
And he's laughing with her, and agrees.