MY HEAD IS AN ANIMAL
Natasha grows tired of the kind of person she sees herself as. Steve thinks he might be able to find her a new spirit animal.
Title courtesy of Of Monsters and Men.
Tony starts it all, of course.
They're all gathered in the common room, too lazy to move even though the last slice of pizza had been fought over hours ago (Natasha won by stealing the pizza while the boys were arguing, as usual). Now they sit around nursing beers, having set aside the stronger stuff they broke out for Thor. Whenever the thunder god happens to be around, everyone feels obliged to raid Tony's personal stash and at least try to get Thor tipsy. He's such a happy drunk that it seems a crime to deny him the joys of intoxication.
After a round of laughter subsides into tired silence, everyone takes a moment to catch their breath while Tony starts rambling on about the most random things, ending with a thoughtful observation regarding Steve and his many golden retriever-like qualities.
Natasha snorts, Clint nearly chokes on his beer and Bruce looks like he wants to laugh, but doesn't because Steve is right next to him. Clint has no such qualms and bursts into loud, amused chortles as soon as his coughing fit is over. Thor follows his cue and chuckles even though he doesn't quite get the joke.
"Then what does that make you, Stark?" Natasha asks evenly, avoiding Steve's eyes because she's certain they're fairly puppy-like right now and she'd rather not agree with Tony.
"A lion," Tony declares. "But like, a ginger lion. I'd still have an awesome gold mane, but there'd be these red tufts of fur everywhere."
Bruce finally laughs then. "An Iron Man lion?"
"I'd say a peacock," Clint chimes in with a critical eye fixed upon Tony, as if he's putting any serious thought behind this. "You're a peacock with red and gold feathers. The personality fits too."
For a moment, it almost looks like Tony's about to say something in protest. "That…" he shrugs and downs what remains of his beer in one go, "is accurate. Okay, next."
Surprisingly, Bruce speaks up. "I'm going to be fairly boring and say Natasha lives up to her name." The scientist offers her a grin, letting her know it's all in good fun. "Tiny but deadly."
"Oh, yeah," Tony nods. "You're definitely a man-eating spider," He turns to Natasha and plasters a smirk on his face.
Thor frowns. "Why must you cast the widow spider in such a negative light? Lady Natasha lives up to her name, yes, but only because she is as graceful and lethal." He turns to Natasha with an expectant look and the others follow suit, waiting for her verdict.
"Oh, no," Natasha laughs, setting her drink down on the table. It is immediately impossible to pick hers out of the multitude of similar bottles. "Me?" She gets to her feet, resists the urge to stretch out tired and sleeping muscles. "I'm just a fly."
And with that, she walks out of the room. "Good night, boys. Don't smash through the walls again."
Blood rushes up to Thor cheek's at the reminder. The last time they had all gathered in such a manner, Tony had demanded to see Mjolnir yet again, convinced that he had (in his drunken haze) figured out a way around the hammer's spell. Equally drunk, Thor simply held up his hand while he laughed at his friend's outrageous claims and seconds later, Mjolnir came flying in… from the opposite end of the tower and two floors down.
Tony calls after Natasha and asks her to explain her choice of spirit animal – or bug, as it is - but the redhead's already disappeared into the dark shadows of the hallway. He shrugs and turns back to the group.
"So," Thor says to Clint. "Are you a hawk, or do you consider yourself some kind of bug as well?"
That sets off a loud round of debate, with Tony pitching in to call Clint a rat or some equally unwanted pest. Natasha's disappearance is felt by none but Steve, whose eyes remain on the darkened hallway long after their teammate is gone.
Is that really how she sees herself?
.
.
.
.
.
He doesn't mean to bring it up three days later while she's dancing around him and darting out of reach every time he tries to land a hit, but Steve's never been good at letting things go.
"So," He wheezes out as Natasha knocks him down yet again, her lips curling into a victorious smirk. "A fly, huh?"
"I wasn't always a man-eating spider," Natasha replies easily, helping him back up to his feet. "First I was a fly, a tiny thing spying on my handlers. Sometimes they would send us to bed early and meet up to discuss certain recruits, especially those they felt were falling behind. Whenever we got an early night, we knew that by morning, one of us would be gone."
Steve doesn't know what to say to that, can't think of a word to suitably describe his horror. Natasha doesn't seem to have any need for his words anyway – she keeps talking as they get back into position and begin their dance anew, leaving no room for him to speak.
"We weren't allowed to make friends – they couldn't risk us forming bonds and attachments – but there was this girl, Yelena," Natasha smiles, but it's a very particular smile – bittersweet, the kind that signifies only loss and pain. "People would mistake us for each other all the time. We had this little game, this little lie we lived in: we liked to pretend we were sisters. Everything else had been taken from us but at least we had each other, we'd say."
She pauses then, and Steve already knows what comes next.
"And then one day she was gone, just like that. And we'd all seen it coming but if I had just known, if we'd at least been prepared to say good-bye to each other…" Natasha shakes her head, as if to discard that line of thought. "That's when I started spying on our handlers. They caught me, eventually – of course they did. But I'd been spying on them for nearly two years by then, and they were impressed enough to let it slide, just that once. They decided they would take that part of me and polish it, sharpen it – turn me into a weapon unlike the rest. My handler was so proud he gave me a nickname."
"Fly?" Steve guesses.
"A fly on the wall – that's what they say, right?" She smiles again; it still doesn't reach her eyes. "I'm not the spider I used to be, but I don't think I'll ever stop being a fly. Better a spy than a killer, I guess," Natasha shrugs and pins him down again, knocking the air out of his lungs when she lands on top of him.
"Would you look at that?" Her lips curve upwards to form a satisfied smirk. "The great Captain America, knocked down by a tiny fly."
It wasn't exactly a fair fight – he'd been too distracted by her story to pay any actual attention to her movements – but Steve lets it slide. "Fine, you win."
Natasha grins.
This time, it reaches her eyes.
.
.
.
.
.
Maybe it should worry him - the fact that he doesn't even react to Natasha breaking into his room in the middle of the night anymore.
"Stark needs to upgrade his security system," Steve mumbles as Natasha slips into bed next to him; she's close enough for him to feel her laugh.
"I don't think I want to be a fly anymore," Natasha declares, looking straight up at the ceiling. "Or a spider." There's no way she doesn't feel him staring, but her eyes remain fixed upon the ceiling. "A lioness seems too cliché. Maybe a cheetah? Or one of those bilge-something Thor's always going on about."
"We had a cat, once." He finally says after a moment's consideration, chasing after a convoluted train of thought that may or may not lead to someplace interesting. "Well, sort of. Ma worked hard enough to put food on the table for the two of us as it was, so we couldn't really afford another mouth to feed. But I don't think the cat cared about that. She didn't need us, not really. Just wandered in one day and made herself at home."
And now Steve feels her eyes on him as she turns on her side to watch him but he can't look at her, not yet. He's figured out where this seemingly-random cat story is leading and he can't afford to chicken out now. "She could take care of herself, didn't need anyone to look out for her. Cats are independent like that; I don't think a cat can ever really belong to someone. But you don't need to own them to love them. And they're not that good at showing it, but sometimes they love you back in their own weird way."
He waits with baited breath for her to read between the lines.
"So," Natasha finally says, and there's a little smile playing on her lips when he turns to face her. "A cat."
"A cat," Steve nods.
They stare at each other for so long it feels like the sun should have risen by now. "Okay," Natasha finally shrugs, and they both know she's agreeing to more than just a new spirit animal. "A cat. What sort of cat?"
Steve falters; he hasn't thought that far ahead, never even considered that they might make it past the point where he kind of, sort of tells her how he feels about her and insinuates that she feels the same way.
He blindly reaches out to his nightstand and gropes about for his phone.
"Here," He hands Natasha the device as she inches closer. "Google Russian cats and we'll pick one."
Natasha stills and oh God, this is it, this is when she realizes what she's just agreed to and storms out of his room and possibly out of his life and-
"Did Captain America just tell me to Google something?" Her voice drips with amusement, and her eyes shine with something more than just her silent laugh.
And God help him, he loves this woman.
So… here's my second attempt at a Natasha/Steve fic, which turned out to be more of a Natasha-centric thing with hints of possible Natasha/Steve. Why does this keep happening whenever I try to write Natasha/Steve? I don't understand why I can't write fluff for these two because I ship the hell out of this ship. But yeah, I'm still going to shamelessly ask for reviews even though my fluff-less fic doesn't deserve it. It's the giving season, after all!
P.S: this is some sort of 'canon-divergent, Ultron never happened' AU.
This is part of a holiday collection I put together for Christmas. If you enjoyed this fic and would like to read more, please check out the rest of the collection. Who knows, we might have some other fandoms in common!
Merry Christmas and happy holidays!
E Salvatore,
December 2015.