Chapter Two:
"Never Have I Ever..."
The sleep over games did not happen straight away, much to Tony's dismay. When he had went to gleefully yell that they were going to play some traditional sleep over games, he was greeted with the sight of Maria Hill – resident hard/ bad ass – sound asleep on the chair that she was sharing with Natasha. The deputy director had curled up into the tightest of balls, knee's pulled in against her chest and one arm curled around it protectively whilst using the other as a makeshift pillow.
Natasha grinned at them as she began taking photos of the sleeping as Tony started to complain.
"Seriously? I thought this was the women that would stay awake for five years at a time!" he grumbled, mainly annoyed at the fact that the second part of his plan was not going according to plan.
Natasha chuckled softly, mindful not to wake the sleeping women. "Let her enjoy her cat nap, Tony. This is probably the first time she has had a moments peace in a few days."
"Probably the first time she's sleep as well." Clint chimed in, as much as he wanted to help Tony get the two knuckle heads together and would do nearly anything to make their plan successful, waking up a sleeping Maria was not one of them. Clint has known Maria for such a long time that he knows better than to wake her, especially since she seemed to be constantly sleep deprived.
"Well, when can we play some games? It's not very often we are all together like this and we need some serious team bonding time." Tony said with as much seriousness as he could muster, without chuckling at his own plan.
"Tomorrow?" Steve questioned, peering over towards the windows, "the snow doesn't look as though it will clear up anytime soon. So we've probably got a couple of days stuck in here."
Everyone automatically turn to face the windows, frowns marring their faces.
"That looks like its getting worse, not better." Pepper commented, pausing to think about the stock levels within the tower. They should hold, providing it wasn't much longer than two or three weeks.
"Well, if anything, I'm with Hill right now. Tired and ready to sleep on my giant bed." Clint said, standing and stretching.
"If we're all going to bed, it means we have to wake her." Natasha warned Clint, giving him a serious looks.
Clint pulled a face at that, "Urgh, I hate waking the bear up from her nap. She always grumpy and snaps."
"Glad you guys hold me in such high regards." Maria said, her voice laced with sleep as she slowly uncurled from her self-made ball.
The team seemed to collectively wince as they realised that they woke up Maria and pissed her off within a few seconds. It must be a new record for them.
Maria rolled her eyes and waved them off, "I would've woke up in the next ten minutes or so anyways. Don't sweat."
"Maria," Pepper said suddenly, a thought forming in her head that would greatly help to their plans. "The guest floors aren't set up to receive anyone and the housekeepers have went home already, I can't exactly call them in. You'll need to share someone's floor." Pepper said apologetically, trying to conceal her giddiness at her amazingly fast thinking skills.
"Oh no." Maria started sarcastically, "Whatever will I do? I don't think I'll be able to handle sharing an apartment sized floor with anyone." Maria chuckled to herself, "It's fine Pepper, I'm just grateful I'm not being forced to sleep on the floor." She joked.
"You can stay on my floor, if you want." Natasha automatically offered her friend, happy to spend more time with Maria. She wasn't sure that she was going to see much of the brunette during the holiday season, and she was unwilling to admit that that made her somewhat sad. Somewhat.
"Great, thanks Nat." Maria said, smiling softly at her close friend, secretly glad to be spending more time with Natasha. Maybe she could bring the idea up of the two of them spending Christmas together, if she didn't have any other plans.
It didn't take long for everyone to make their way to their own respective floors, quiet 'good nights' in the elevator as the energetic mood died with every gaining level in the lift. Once at Natasha's floor, she showed Maria the room that she can stay in – the one across from hers – and with a small smile that hid many secrets, she left Maria to her own devices, lingering in the door, as if she wanted to say something. Whatever it was, she quickly left after she realised Maria was giving her a quizzical look.
Maria shrugged off the unusual behaviour from Natasha and settled down to sleep, in a stupidly comfy bed.
Steve: "I thought the guest bedrooms were always ready? Worked out well for us tho."
Tony: "-eye roll-"
Pepper: "They are, but this is a lot more convenient for us and helps us towards our goal!"
Clint: "It was a genius move, now we all know why Stark industries is suddenly thriving again ;)"
Tony: "Pepper is a genius and I have no problem admitting it."
Tony: "However, I am the better matchmaker between the two of us and I will prove it."
Pepper: "Keep telling yourself that, Stark."
Steve: "That was a good move. The sleep over games should work in our favour, right?"
Clint: "Hill will always over share when drunk. It's just a matter of getting her drunk in the first place. She knows her limits and very rarely goes over it."
Pepper: "Why?"
Clint: "Idk, something about being responsible and being on call 24/7. Some shit like that."
Tony: "Well, there's no way she can be on call now with the snow storm."
Steve: "I don't know, Fury tends to get a hold of her no matter what from what I've seen and heard."
Clint: "Yeah, Hill's his right hand women, he has secretive ways to get a hold of her, there is rumours going round that he managed to get Hill to answer her phone in a conference right after she had sex. Totally had her sex voice on."
Tony: "Oh now she needs to get drunk and tell me everything."
Pepper: "I agree. I need to hear this."
Steve: "Well, we'll figure it out tomorrow. I'm off to sleep."
Clint: "Old man needs his rest."
Steve: "Shut up. You're physically older than me."
Clint: "We're going by year of birth."
Steve: "What about year of re-birth."
Pepper: "You're both old. Shut up, trying to concentrate."
Tony: ";)"
Clint: "Ew."
Steve: "TMI."
The next morning, Tony had JARVIS wake them all up, politely demanding that they all join him on the common floor for a delicious breakfast cooked by himself and Pepper, and as much as Maria wanted to stay sleeping in her cocoon of warmth, she was extremely curious to see what their cooking was like. Although, the only thing that was putting her off was that they had to attend in their pj's.
"Like a real sleep over, Mr Stark said." JARVIS supplied, his computerised voice taking on a hint of amusement.
For most people, she supposed that would be fine, for those that slept in matching pyjamas set or those weird sleep suits. Maria slept in a tank top and boy shorts, and she didn't exactly have any other sleep wear with her, preferring not to feel restrictive in her sleep. Maybe Natasha would have some spare clothes that she could borrow.
With that thought, she shoved herself out of her bed and lazily walked across the hall to Natasha's room, trying to wake herself up with every step that she took. By this point in her life, she realised that there was no way for her to fully wake up without a cup of coffee and every time she remembered that, it made her wince. Not the best thing to be dependant on, but unless someone wanted her to pull of these ridiculous shifts that she did, they would just have to put up with it.
She had even contemplated – several times – asking Stark to build her a machine that would just brew a cup for her for when she woke up. That way she wouldn't have to move and would be awake within in seconds rather than minutes. It would really shave time of her morning routine.
"Morning sleepy head." Came Natasha's voice as she approached her friends door, Maria blinked in surprise, she wasn't even paying attention to her surroundings, that or Natasha was purposely being quiet.
"Hey yourself." She forced out, eyes widening as she saw that Natasha slept in basically the same sleep wear as herself. Which, really, was a good idea, in Maria's opinion. Not that she would ever, ever, admit that to anyone, especially Natasha.
Natasha's legs just looked too damn good.
Maria pulled her eyes from Natasha's body to her face, the respectful, adult thing to do. Not continue the horny teenage stare at her body.
"Have you literally just rolled out of bed?" Natasha asked, amused as she took in Maria's appearance.
"Why?" Maria replied slowly, automatically looking down at her body. Nothing out of the ordinary.
"I'm talking about the bird nest that is your hair, Hill." Natasha teased, turning and reaching for something at the side of her. Her hand reappeared with a brush, wiggling it for added effect.
"Would you like me to brush it, your laziness?" Natasha mocked her, her eyes challenging Maria, for some unknown reason.
Maria rolled her eyes and grabbed the brush, grumbling softly as she pulled the brush from her hair and using her fingers to try and style it into something that wasn't a birds nest.
"You really are useless before you have your coffee. How are you walking?" Natasha joked, reaching forward with her own hands and gentle moved Maria's hair into the right place.
Maria froze for a second, she really was useless before her coffee, how the hell was she meant to control her very obvious reaction to that? As Sharon had so delightfully pointed out to her, she really was a useless lesbian.
"Thanks Nat, you really know how to treat a girl." She quickly fired, "Next time you should have coffee ready for me and I'll be down on my knee in a second to propose." she teased.
Natasha snorted and rolled her eyes in amusement at their banter. "Oh honey, you'll be proposing tomorrow morning. Make sure it's a big diamond. I have expensive taste."
Maria chuckled at that, it felt good to just relax like this, having a bit of fun with her friend and not having to worry about anything. The two of them lapsed into a silence, standing in Natasha's doorway before Maria remembered her original reason for being on her end of the floor.
"Don't suppose you have any trousers or anything longer than these boy shorts?" Maria asked, guesting towards her room.
"Nope, or else I'd be wearing them. No, we should just own it, what are they going to do? Stare at us? The horror." Natasha said, joking around again as she moved forward, walking confidently past Maria toward the lift door.
Maria shrugged in response to Natasha, following her lead. It wasn't like she wasn't comfortable with what she was wearing, or she wouldn't wear it in the first place. It was just unusual for her to be this exposed in front of people she hasn't spent that much time with. She was pretty sure that none of them, minus Nat and Clint, had actually seen her out of her work clothes.
Well there was a first time for everything, she supposed as she stepped into the lift and descended towards the common floor.
Greeting everyone in a tank top and boy shorts went down about as well as Maria thought. Steve chocked on his drink, Clint laughed himself stupid and gave them an over-exaggerated wink and Pepper and Tony grinned together as Tony whistled in appreciation.
Glad to know that her assumptions about them were accurate. It was always good to know that her people reading skills were still intact.
"Morning." Maria greeted, stealing Clint's coffee, sighing happily into the cup and letting herself rest on a chair near his, leaving a space for Natasha to sit with her closest friend.
"Hey, get your own coffee." Clint grumbled, reaching for his cup, but Maria pulled it out of his reach. It was her coffee now.
"Here, you grouch." Natasha said softly, pushing a cup in front of Maria and skilfully plucking the one out of her hands to pass back to Clint.
"Thanks" Maria replying, happy to have a full mug. It didn't take a lot nowadays to make her happy, apparently.
"Well that was something." Steve commented casually, looking at Maria.
Maria raised an eyebrow at him over the rim of her mug. She was allowed to be carefree, it was the only time of year that she really allowed herself to relax. Not due to the holidays, but due to the fact that a lot of SHIELD staff took the holidays off, leaving Maria in peace to deal with missions and paper work efficiently and quickly.
Okay, maybe it had a little bit to do with the holidays.
"Maria's not fully awake yet, just wait. She'll turn into the hard ass that we all know and love." Clint teased her form his seat, helping himself to the food that has appeared on the table.
"Natasha, punch him for me." Maria asked, not really looking at Clint as she said that.
Natasha wordless punched Clint in the arm, not looking at him either, instead focusing on the same thing that Maria was, which was watching Pepper and Tony cook. It wasn't often that they all had a moment like this together, where they could relax and enjoy themselves and each others company.
Before they had all moved into the tower, Pepper and Tony had someone cook all their meals for them, which they could quickly eat as they moved from project to project. Steve had been the first one to move in and insisted on cooking his own meals whilst staying here with little to do. It ended up forcing the two to slow down a little in their days to make time for Steve's home cooked meals, making a point to at least sit down for one meal together once a day.
It continued on as everyone else moved in and Clint was the only other person with any reasonable cooking skills, so Steve and Clint took turns cooking and the others cleaned up, it was a good balance, until they all started getting busy again and the cooks ended up back making the majority of their meals for them.
So it was nice to see Tony and Pepper teasing each other as they cooked, being the perfect movie couple as they tried to mess up the others appearance, playful hits and putting food on each others face – or dramatically putting ice cubes down Tony's back apparently.
It was a nice break from the horrors of the world, seeing her some-what friends relax like this.
Eventually the two managed to put the rest of the food on the table and joined the team.
"So, we are so playing those sleep over games tonight." Tony announced in a way that it was clear that no was not an option.
"Do we have to?" Steve asked, putting on a frown for extra convincing, as per Tony and Peppers instructions this morning.
They were currently in pre-phase 2; get the girls to agree to play the games during breakfast.
"Yes! It's great bonding experience. You're all about team bonding, aren't you, Hill? Wouldn't you like to be on first name basis with us?" Tony asked, putting a little bit too much enthusiasm into his approach.
Maria raised her eyebrow again, "I'm not technically apart of the Avengers" she shrugged in response. "And I'm on first name basis with everyone that I need to be, Stark." She said, throwing a little bit of shade at Tony. The small smile on her face let them all know that she was simply joking around with them.
"I'm hurt." Tony grumbled, but then perked up at another idea to get Maria to play. "If you play, I'll let you choose any two bottles from my booze collection."
Maria perked up at this. "Any two?" She asked for confirmation,
"Any two." Tony confirmed
"Alright, I'm in." Maria said sitting back happily against her chair at this small win.
"Do any of us get an incentive to play?" Clint asked, pretending to be offended.
"I got Maria to play." Tony said with a shrug. "There's your incentive."
"You know, I might just call you my friend one day, Tony." Maria said, putting a little emphasis on his name.
Natasha rolled her eyes at their behaviour, "well I'm in, always wanted to do these stupid American sleep overs."
Clint grinned as he looked at Natasha, "at least that will be one thing to get off your bucket list!"
"Sleep over games are on your bucket list?" Pepper asked curiously,
Natasha just shrugged, "child assassin here people. Do you really think I got to do any of this?"
"Good point." Pepper said with a frown, "guess we will just have to make it fantastic."
"Okay, so when exactly do we need to be present for sleep over stuff?" Steve asked.
"6pm tonight, we will start with the traditional stuff, then we will hit the alcohol so hard it won't even see us coming." Tony planned.
They all made some noise of agreement before digging into their food, talking about the other plans they had for the day after splitting up after breakfast.
Maria spent the whole day on the phone with someone at SHIELD, either fixing their mistakes or talking someone through a mission plan of hers and describing her back up plans for back up plans that were not written down yet.
Fury sucks.
She couldn't think of anything more creative than that, those phone calls tend to drain the creativeness out of you, as well as sap your energy. Maria often wondered how she managed to put up with these people, she had almost collapsed in relief when someone sensibly put Victoria Hand on the phone. Finally, it had been someone who easily understood the way that Maria thought and was able to get on the train and think for herself in case any of the plans fall through.
Hand also had enough of a backbone that she could deal with Fury and the WSC whilst she wasn't there, and knew mostly what Maria would say to them.
Maria would happily marry Victoria if she ever asked, it was nice to be on the same wavelength as someone else. There were other people that were able to flow with Maria and manage her plans on their own and had the ability to come up with back up plans as well; Coulson was one, as well as Bobbi and Natasha to name a few. Clint would be able to come up with back up plans for a two-man team, that was part of his speciality. Maria tended to let Clint dictate his missions and create missions plans which she would just generally approve of as they seemed like the best approach. Of course, she still made plans for his missions. Just in case.
Maria groaned as she moved from her currently location of lying upside down in a chair in the guest room, she had been hoping that all the blood rushing to her head would just knock her out or something to the same effect, but alas, it did not. Just messed up hair and a stiff body.
She glanced at the time again, hoping that it really wasn't time to go down and bond with the Avengers, unfortunately, it was. At least she was going to get some expensive booze out of it, Stark was quickly learning the way to her heart. Coffee and booze. Maria lazily made her way down the lift and towards the common area. Everyone else was already there, having claimed seats for themselves already on the floor, leaving Maria to sit next to Natasha.
This would make this evening a lot more bearable.
"About time!" Tony complained, looking excited to start the night. "What kept you so long?"
"Work." Maria replied simply, not caring to elaborate further.
Tony rolled his eyes at the answer Maria gave him, but seemed to shrug it of as he reached behind him and pulled shot glassed out, followed by a bottle of tequila.
"I thought this would put us in the mood." Tony said, grinning at them and started passing the shot glasses out.
"Are we just gonna take shots in silence or are we going to have fun with this?" Natasha asked, taking her glass as she looked at Tony,
"It's like you don't know me at all." Tony grumbled, "of course we are going to play some silly drinking game, Pepper suggested 'never have I ever.' Any disagreements?" he asked them, getting shrugs of agreement from the rest. "Lets do it, Clint you're up first."
Clint leaned forward in thought as he filled up the shot glasses near him. "Let's see, never have I ever pranked someone whilst they were sleeping." he finished, grinning as he looked very pointedly at Maria.
Maria tried to look innocent as she flung back the shot with a grimace at the initial taste, "God, I love tequila."
Natasha calmly followed her with taking a shot, the two of them had worked together after all.
"You've never pranked someone whilst sleeping, Clint?" Steve asked, looking surprised.
Clint shrugged in response, "I never done it, I might have set one up whilst they were sleeping but never done the stuff of like putting whip cream on someone's face or drawing on it. What Maria and Natasha did was just cruel and unjust."
"You deserved it." Natasha commented, smiling at Maria's continued attempt to appear nonchalant about the situation.
"He really did." Maria continued to be vague about the situation, neither women seemed to want to give up any information on, but the smirks that slowly appeared on their faces and the grouchy look on Clint's, they knew it was good one.
"You have to share now!" Tony grumbled, giving them the stink eye.
"Not drunk enough to share that story." Maria said, reaching for the tequila to refill her glass.
"Nowhere near the level of intoxicated to share that one, I don't even think Clint will either." Natasha teased.
"We'll get it out eventually." Pepper promised suddenly, a glint in her eye showing the side of the CEO that not many people saw.
"We'll see." Maria replied airily, but shot Pepper a smile, a quiet promise that she will share with the women at a later time.
"Whatever, next one!" Tony announced, raises his glass. "Alright, my turn... let's see, never have I eve-"
"What haven't you done? We might be here a while." Maria interrupted, a small smirk on her face, as Natasha gave a cough out in an attempt to cover up her snort of laughter.
"I haven't done stuff!" Tony protested.
"Like what? Never have you been sober for more than a week?" Came a teasing voice from the side.
Maria looked around in surprise, "Sharon!" she exclaimed happily, glad to have another one of her friends here to make the night that little bit more fun.
"That's just mean, Shar." Tony pouted.
"And you're a grown man pouting at his little cousin." Sharon teased back, shrugging out of her jacket and shows which were covered in snow. " I hope you don't mind me dropping by, but couldn't get my car started and your place was closer than mine."
"Of course! You're always welcome here, Sharon." Pepper responded kindly.
"Great, so next question, why are you guys playing drinking games?" She questioned as she sat down on Maria's other side, stealing her shot.
"Tony wants us to bond." Maria dead panned, looking at her friend with humour in her eyes.
"Oh, I see. Well, I can get down with that." Sharon responded and not so subtly looked over Steve.
Tony scrunched up his face, "no stop that."
"Stop what?" Sharon replied innocently, grabbing a spare shot glass so Maria could have hers back.
Tony narrowed his eyes at her, "anyway. As I was saying, never have I ever thrown up during sex." he finished proudly.
"Yes you have." Pepper said automatically, staring him down, "do you not remember? That girl about six years ago now?"
"There has been many girls Pepper," Tony complained, "How am I meant to keep track of them all? I only need to keep track of you, and you are a handful!" he finished.
Pepper rolled her eyes and pushed his shot in her face. "Drink."
"Fine." Tony grumbled, taking his shot.
The game continued in the same manner for several hours, lasting a lot longer than any of them were expecting but after the first ten shots or so, most people were already passed the sensible amount of intoxication and were constantly getting into competition with each other about who can share the most embarrassing thing about their friend.
Sharon thought it would be hilarious to share the fact that her and Maria had a casual thing going on and about how one time Maria had fallen asleep during sex.
"Did you have to mention that?" Maria had whined, burying her head against Natasha's arm, trying to hide away from her shame.
Everyone was laughing as Sharon explained herself. "Oh Maria, it's just too funny not to share, if it had been the other way around, I would have been offended."
Tony had not taken the news so well and had been over-dramatic to find out his little cousin has casual sex with the deputy director of SHIELD.
"Okay, okay, my turn," Pepper giggled, swaying slightly, the glint back in her eyes. "Never have I ever had a crush on someone I worked with!"
"You're with Tony!" Sharon shouted, her hand flinging itself forward to point accusingly at the women.
Pepper attempted to hold a straight face before bursting out laughing, but surprisingly enough, everyone took a shot. That had been a first for the night.
Steve, who wasn't nowhere near as drunk as the rest, looked at them, deciding it was upon himself to further their cause in getting Maria and Natasha to admit that they like each other.
"The deputy director has a crush on someone she works with!" He mocked, letting out a gasp in shock.
"Shut... up Rogers, I know you aren't as wrecked as the rest of us." Maria slurred slightly, past the point of return.
"Who?" he asked simply, being straight forward and blunt with Maria had tended to work tonight during these games and got the women talking; that or she just loved to over-share at random moments.
"Shhhhhh, can't tell! It's a secret but she's pretty!" Maria staged whispered, eyes widening as she grinned at Sharon.
Sharon rolled her eyes "Don't let that fool you Rogers, it isn't me. I know fine well who Maria has a crush on. She cries her name out whe-"
Maria launched herself at Sharon, knocking her down and shoving her hand over Sharon's mouth, "don't you dare!" she threatened.
"Or what?" Sharon playful replied, shoving Maria's hand away from her mouth.
"Or...or I'll tell them about everything you've told me about Dougie. Every fantasy and sexual desire." Maria said with clarity, a grin making its way onto her face as she mentioned the made up name for Rogers so that they could discuss it at any point without anyone realising who they were talking about.
Sharon eyes widen at this, as she realised that, even though she had a lot of dirt on Maria, Maria knew a lot more embarrassing things about her that she could share at any moment.
"I'll be quiet." Sharon promised.
"Good girl." Maria said, climbing back off her and back to her previous position, leaning against Natasha for support in her attempts to stay sitting upright.
"Wow, you almost sounded like a top there." Sharon teased, pushing herself back up. Maria just rolled her eyes at her friend and pointedly ignored her.
"Natasha drank as well, who've you got a crush on in work?" Maria asked, genuinely curious about who the hell had caught Natasha's attention. She knew fine well it was not Steve or Clint, Natasha saw them as annoying brothers. They have already had a similar conversation.
"You." Natasha said, taking on a joking voice as she looked down at the women lying against her arm.
Maria, far too drunk to realise the forced joking tone, gave a snort. "Sweet, think you might need some brain readjustments though."
"Brain readjustments?" Clint questioned, giggling to himself at Maria's lack of vocabulary.
"Shut up. Who have you got a crush on?" Maria demanded, moving on from the conversation.
It left Natasha feeling slightly disappointed, that Maria easily pushed the idea away of Natasha having a crush on her. Like it was a prank someone was playing on her, when it could be further from the truth. She rested her head on top of Maria's as she attempted to grill Clint on who he liked within SHIELD.
"Who says I still have a crush on this person? It could be in the past! Pepper didn't specify when." Clint protested.
"Still meant you had a crush on someone! Did you have a crush on Steve?" Maria accused him, apparently beyond all rational thinking.
"Yes, I the amazing Hawkeye, had a crush on Captain America." Clint said sarcastically.
"Knew it." Maria said, sinking back against Natasha, seemingly happy with that answer.
"I think we're fucked." Tony announced, moving himself so he could lie against Pepper, wrapping his arms firmly around her waist. "We should have sex." He mumbled drunkly.
"Too drunk. It would suck." Pepper deflected easily, swatting his wandering hands.
Steve glanced at the time and winced when he saw it was well into the early hours of the morning. It seemed like it was left to him to take the drunken adults upstairs and to bed.
He figured he had better luck trying to get to Asgard on his own.
Natasha caught his eye and raised an eyebrow at him and mouth "bed?" and titled her head to the remainder of their group, babbling away to each other like toddlers. Steve nodded in response and pushed himself to his feet.
"Alright, bed time." Steve announced to them and grabbed Tony, pulling him to his feet. He figured Tony would be the hardest to convince to end their night after only playing the one game, but if he got Tony to comply, the rest would follow. Hopefully.
He looked over at Natasha and his eyes widened in surprise to see that she already had Clint and Maria standing, holding onto their arms.
"Good luck, Cap. Pepper can be as bad as Tony." Natasha said, shrugging at him.
"How are you not drunk?" He questioned her, his disbelief taking over as he watched he steady her two friends.
"Oh I am, but these two are so much worse off that it make me look sober as fuck. Later Cap." She replied, no longer in the mood to stand around and chat. She guided her friends towards the lift to get them ready for the sleeping.
It didn't take long to get Clint settled, in fact, he pushed himself away from Natasha as soon as she entered his room, stumbling as he pulled off his clothes and shoes, leaving himself in only his boxers. Then he decided to just belly flop onto his bed and feel asleep where he landed. Natasha had shook her head and gently moved his head to lie on its side rather than face down. Just in case he decided to be sick in his sleep.
Maria however, Maria was much more difficult. She refused to move her legs, whining at Natasha that Tony never let her chose her bottle of booze yet and how they should go back downstairs so she can grab some and continue drinking. The worst part was that she was tempted to go with Maria's plan, to push the women a little bit further on who it was the women had a crush on. She was curious to know, but she knew that it was not the best thing for their friendship if Natasha done that.
So Natasha continue her struggle to get Maria to sleep in a bed. It ended up being that Maria pulled them into her room and flopped down on Natasha's bed, pulling the redhead with her.
"We should just share a bed. Saves mess. Saves environment." Maria mumbled into a pillow.
"How does it save the environment?" Natasha questioned, pulling off Maria's shoes, decided to give up on the battle of getting her into her own bed.
"Less...less usage of electricity? Less waste?" Maria questioned, lifting her head slightly to look at Natasha.
Natasha shrugged, too tired and drunk to really care about Maria's drunken reasons. At this point all she wanted to do was sleep and Maria would be next to her, so in Natasha's book, this was win. She lay down next to Maria and watched as the women smiled sleepily at her.
"I think... I think am going to have a bitch of a hangover tomorrow." Maria concluded, her eyes shutting.
Natasha chuckled quietly, "yeah, I think everyone will." she responded quietly, pulling the covers over the two of them.
"Mhm. Night Nat." Maria mumbled, falling asleep instantly.
Natasha rolled her eyes fondly at her and couldn't help but think drunken Maria was just adorable. Natasha still wished Maria had taken her seriously about admitting that she had a crush on the women. It was a gamble, but it was also a bonus that Maria didn't seem disgusted by the idea of being with her, but rather seemed to think it was herself that was the problem.
It was weird and Natasha needed to fix it, but it would have to be a problem tomorrow because she wasn't even sure if she could reload a gun at this precise moment, never mind get Maria to realise what an amazing person she is.
She'll have to do something, maybe just kiss her and see what happens, that would certainly be bold and forward, but Maria enjoyed that in a person. It as just too complicated for night time thoughts, Natasha concluded. Deciding to sleep on the matter and deal with it tomorrow, as she drifted gently into a sleep, ignoring the fact that Maria's arm had snaked its way around her waist.
