For Cairistiona7 because reasons ;)

Natasha Always Knows

Maria didn't know how she still managed to get suckered into betting with Natasha. It had to be her Widow training, enabling her to subtly get people to buy into her schemes. Or maybe Maria just liked a challenge. Either way, she was headed to Natasha's studio apartment, (large) bottle of wine in hand.

Natasha opened her door and ushered Maria in. She already had a couple of glasses set out on the small countertop. "You're being optimistic," Maria said, eyeing the glasses. "I was ready to just trade off swigging from the bottle."

Natasha did chuckle at that. "You have an awful lot of trust for someone who works so closely with Fury," she said, digging through a drawer and finding her corkscrew. "Most people wouldn't even think about sharing with a Widow. Too many risks."

"Yeah, well part of working for Fury is knowing who I can trust." Maria took the very full glass Natasha offered her and then took a seat on the couch. Natasha sat on the floor and set her laptop on the coffee table. "And I really hope Rogers learns that quickly."

"Who to trust, or not to trust me?" Natasha asked. She grinned as she pulled up Google.

"You knew exactly what you were doing when you told him not to Google himself." Maria leaned back and sipped her wine.

"Well yeah," Natasha told her. But she was smiling. "Another bottle of wine says he's doing it. Right now." She paused and thought a moment. "Or just that he did it at all."

"And where's the proof?"

"Do you think he'll be able to keep quiet about something like that?" Natasha raised an eyebrow, and Maria had to agree. In the short time she'd known Steve he was stiffly polite, but not inclined to keep his opinions to himself, and certainly not afraid to speak up. "Should we take a look and see what he's finding?"

"You mean you didn't look already?" Maria asked.

Natasha shrugged. "I felt like this is meant to be shared. Bring the bottle over, because this is going to be a long night."

There were the normal search results: Captain America, Project Rebirth, old news archives. Maria had read the original reports, so none of this was new. But then there were the comics, sensationalizing Steve's adventures in the war. A lot of this she'd seen as well, and had to endure quite a bit shortly after they found Steve alive in the ice. Phil had talked to her about it nonstop. He'd even shown her his vintage cards. The way he spoke, in hushed tones, told her that he didn't do this for just anyone, so she humored him. Now she was glad that she had. She poured another glass of wine.

But it didn't stop at comics. Steve had fans: longtime fans who had theories. Theories they wrote out in elaborate stories based on the comics. And some of them…

"Can that really happen?" Maria asked, rereading a paragraph of a story aloud. "I don't think Steve would even let anyone try!"

Natasha finished off her glass and poured more wine. "Another bottle of wine says you won't ask him."

Maria met Natasha's steady gaze. "You're on." She clicked on the next link and her eyes widened at the image that came up on screen. "Who's that?"

Natasha nearly choked on her wine. "Oh God, I can't believe this!" She coughed and gulped down the last of her glass and promptly poured another. "That's his best friend."

"It's good art," Maria said, primly sipping from her glass. "The shading and use of color…" She set down her glass and laughed. "Who am I kidding? He's probably dying right now!"

"We could find out." Natasha held up her phone.

"Nope. There's wine on the line here. We'll wait and see if Steve's too proud to give up the ghost."

"Have you ever googled yourself?" Maria asked Natasha a couple hours later, when the bottle was nearly empty, and the internet browser had at least a dozen tabs open with various information (or misinformation) about Steve and/or Bucky Barnes.

"Of course not," Natasha said. Maria leveled her gaze at her. "Fine, of course I have. The nice thing about being me, though, is who knows if the information is true?"

"It's the internet. Everything's true, depending on who's reading it," Maria pointed out. "Gonna finish that?" She gestured at the bottle. Natasha shook her head, and Maria simply swigged the last of the wine right out of the bottle.

"Exactly," Natasha said. She could have been a bit tipsy, maybe even drunk, but Maria had a feeling that she would never know. Suddenly Natasha's phone beeped. They both scrambled to get a look at the screen. Natasha went from giggling to casual in a split second. "Hey, Rogers," she said, leaning back against the sofa. "Wait, what? You did what? Didn't I tell you…"

Maria had to go into the bathroom and shut the door so Steve wouldn't overhear her laughing. This was totally worth another bottle of wine.