There's a Time and a Place
Steve Rogers didn't mind that two of his best friends were together.
In fact, he was happy for both of them. They were a good match, not to mention good for each other. Natasha was a surprisingly calming influence on people if she bothered to be, and around Bucky, she definitely tried to be. Other than Steve, she could snap him out of one of his more morbid moods better than anyone (assuming it could be done. But that was a different story). Bucky, meanwhile, on his good days when he was close to truly being the Bucky Barnes he'd been before the a war, could get her to lighten up a bit. And on his bad days, well, she could roll with that too. Besides, they had the closest thing to a shared history at the hands of HYDRA and the Red Room, respectively.
However, he was not happy when they decided to throw all their combined professionalism out the window and make out in the bushes during missions, because seriously? Come on, guys!
Steve found them in this exact act during a minor mission in Central Park, when five HYDRA agents had been spotted hiding out there. As it turned out, they'd been waiting for Steve and Sam (and Bucky, assuming he came) to take their daily run, when they were unarmed and relatively off guard. Thankfully, Clint had found them the night before while conducting surveillance of the park, and Steve had gotten Natasha, Bucky and Sam with him the next morning to deal with them, trying to not use lethal force (surprisingly, Bucky was excellent with that, as he was constantly to put his actions as the Winter Soldier behind him. Natasha could be careful too, if given a reason).
And that was how Steve Rogers, hearing some noise in the bushes in front of him and pushing a few branches out of the way, discovered his two friends, snogging with their arms wrapped tightly around one another. That was how he also discovered that Bucky's conditioning had left him very good at multitasking when he heard the click of a gun and found his friend's metal arm pointed straight at him.
"Guys?" Steve asked incredulously (and a bit awkwardly, as he was completely unsure of how to act). "The mission's not over yet. I get that you caught two guys guy earlier, but there's still one out there that Sam and I didn't nab."
No response, though Bucky did lower the gun and wrap his metal arm back around Natasha's shoulder.
"Bucky? Nat?"
Nope. Nothing. Perhaps he'd better try to pull rank. After all, he had been Bucky's commanding officer, and outranked either of them anyway. Assuming they still used ranking systems put in place by the now-derelict S.H.I.E.L.D. Well, maybe he'd better try pulling rank gently.
"…umm, you're still on duty," he tried. That was about as gentle as he could be.
Utter silence on their end. Well, except for kissing noises. Seriously, at this point they'd been locked at the lip longer than Steve had been in his entire life. Apparently, in spite of the fact that he'd been completely unsure of what Thanksgiving was until yesterday morning, Bucky remembered how to properly kiss someone. If not for the circumstances, Steve would've grinned.
Just then, the two of them broke apart and, with all the stealth and speed of two cats, leapt behind Steve.
"Shield," hissed Bucky. Steve immediately held the shield out in front of them, seconds before it was hit by a barrage of bullets.
"Nice job, Rogers," Natasha sighed, barely audible over the gunfire even with Steve's enhanced hearing. "Here we were ten feet away from a HYDRA agent, trying to trick him into making a dumb move, and you had to come in and ruin it."
"What?" Steve asked incredulously as the gunfire stopped and he instinctively started creeping forward, the other two mimicking his moves perfectly.
"We're not as stupid as we look, Steve," Bucky teased. "We were trying to draw him out."
"Or horny," Natasha added.
"Yeah, that too."
"Admittedly, that was fun," the redheaded assassin commented offhandedly as they pressed forward. "You're a good kisser, James."
Steve didn't comment as his friend replied with something in Russian, just suddenly dropped his shield and ran towards the direction of the bullets.
Glad as he was that his friends were together, it made missions rather uncomfortable sometimes.
Author's note: I'm taking a break from 'Soup' to write this, since that's currently depressing me with its lack of reviews. Don't worry, I've got the third drabble written out, and will probably post it next weekend. But for now, enjoy my first foray into the Captain America area of this site period, and my first crack at the Marvel Cinematic Universe on this profile.
I don't ship Bucky/Natasha per se. I ship her with Clint, and him with...well, no one right now. Maybe someday. However, I am fully aware that they were a couple in the comic books for a while, and a pretty good one at that. This plot bunny popped into my head as I was wondering what date nights for two highly-trained assassins would be like, and figured that they would involve more kicking ass and taking names than sitting down for candlelit dinners in Paris. Note that I have never read the comics, though I'm pretty sure my idea of their relationship is...inaccurate. But hey, maybe it's a bit funny.
Also, I included Steve. Somehow, it's funniest to have Steve discover them, since a) Steve's a close friend of both of theirs and b) Steve would behave rather awkwardly if he walked in on his friends like this.
Hope you found that funny! Please review to let me know.