Tidbits
Chapter One: 7x7
oral
He cooks foreign dishes with unpronounceable spices and no measurements, it's one of the best things she's ever tasted but it doesn't compare to satisfaction she gets when pointing out the pink tinge of his ears when she catches him watching her mouth.
kid
Across the street a young mother is tucking her daughter's scarf into a teal pea coat. A Styrofoam cup cuts in front of the scene. He asks if she's okay, she replies with "Fine" and ignores the impossible in favor of the improbable. Better odds.
hostile
Approachable isn't a trait Natasha has cultivated—that's what she has Katie, Jessica, Natalie and Nora for—but he wants Natasha. So she'll learn to smile her own smiles, though it's still this side of hostile.
brick
Tony once programmed the sound system to play "Brick House" when she entered the lab—it made Bruce blush, so she let Stark keep his manhood after putting the fear of god into him.
woman
She's missing the parts that make her a woman, not because of her graduation present but because she has always though of herself as Killer not Woman. So she begins to shape new parts for herself, first from Clint's acceptance, then Steve's kindness, Thor's nobility and Stark's confidence. It's not pretty but she hopes he accepts her mismatch heart.
professor
Sometimes he lectures interns that Tony brings in to awe and recruit on Gamma Radiation. At the end of one she leans against the door frame with a teasing smile and a breathy "Professor-" tumbles from her lips. He has to swallow his heart back down.
strategic
Widow Bites grasped firmly in her palms she doesn't give herself time to think and just acts, using the ridges of his spine prominent beneath his green skin as stepping stones she climbs and then soars in the air to engage the enemy from a better vantage point. At times self preservation had no room in strategy.