And you've got a smile
That could light up this whole town.
I haven't seen it in a while
Since he brought you down.
You say you're fine I know you better than that.
Hey, what you doing with a boy like that?
Chapter 4: You Belong With Me
Steve felt bad for having to put Natasha off like that, but he'd meant it when he said it wasn't his story to share. He'd spent three hours, from midnight on, sitting with Bucky and talking him down from a panic attack.
Bucky hadn't called him this time; his neighbors had. They'd informed Steve that Bucky's dog wouldn't stop barking, so Steve had reluctantly climbed out of bed and into his car to go check on his friend.
Bucky had been crouched in a corner clutching a knife when Steve arrived. Thankfully, he hadn't used it on himself this time; it probably just made him feel safer to have a weapon available. Bucky's dog was curled up by his feet, licking the Sergeant's shaking fingers, when Steve walked in.
It took Steve a while to tease out of Bucky the explanation for his panic attack; Bucky eventually described how during the movie Natasha had walked out of the room and how Clint had excused Natasha's absence and the pizza delivery guy had made him nervous and it had all just made him uncomfortable. He'd obviously avoided calling Steve because he was ashamed of letting those things get to him, so Steve spent a long time reassuring him that it was okay and he didn't mind and he was sure that Natasha was just uncomfortable with so many new people.
So he'd ended up skipping the coffee shop the next morning so he could sleep in, instead going through the drive-thru window at Starbucks on the way to work and treating himself to a hot mocha with lots of whipped cream. And missing out on Natasha's company for one morning was almost worth it to hear her ask where he'd been with a frustrated look on her face.
She had noticed he was gone and cared enough to ask about it. Maybe she had missed him. He couldn't help but glance over at her as he seated himself at his usual table, feeling ridiculously like a teenager with a crush. She was squirting a tower of whipped cream onto a drink with a skilled twist of her wrist, expression calm and focused. Almost without his permission, his hand started sketching the outline of her figure on the open page of his sketchbook. He'd been trying to avoid drawing her too much when he was actually at the coffee shop, because that would require him to look at her. A lot. And Natasha seemed to have an unfortunate sixth sense for that sort of thing, because the few times he'd tried it she had almost immediately turned and met his gaze. Still, right now he couldn't quite help himself (he was so screwed), so he focused on his drawing and managed to draw the outline without Natasha catching him.
Unfortunately, he wasn't as safe as he thought, because he was just filling in her features (it was unmistakably her; he was very proud of how it was turning out) when a light cough from his right made him jolt, arm slamming down over the half-finished drawing and, in the same moment, sending his coffee cup flying across the table and crashing onto the floor. He cringed and slowly, carefully, closed his sketchbook before glancing over to his right, praying desperately that it wasn't her.
It was.
Natasha's expression was the most uncommunicative he'd ever seen it, frozen in a questioning tilt of the eyebrows that could have been good or very, very bad – he wasn't sure. He knew his face was probably beet red and he desperately wanted to curl in on himself and maybe hide under the table. Instead, he scrambled off his chair mumbling something like "Sorry, I wasn't lookin' what I was doing," and grabbed his only napkin to crouch down and wipe the floor. It was pitiful and the whole situation made him feel as tiny and miserable as a worm caught on the sidewalk in a thunderstorm.
A minute later her hands (slender, graceful, braided ring on her middle finger) held out a wad of napkins to him and then started helping him to clean the floor. He didn't think he'd ever be able to glance above her hands ever again. That was okay though, she had nice hands. Bright blue nails. Don't say anything, please. Would it be better if he spoke up preemptively, apologized profusely right now and never came back to the coffee shop? Or should he act like nothing happened and hope she hadn't seen the picture?
God help him, he chose not to say anything.
Natasha stopped wiping the floor, and he knew it was clean but he couldn't stand to look up at her, so he stayed crouched and scrubbed half-heartedly at the tile. Please go away, please go away, he pleaded silently.
Unfortunately, Natasha couldn't read his mind, and if she could, she was ruthless. "Why were you drawing me?" Her voice was dead quiet, with the flat, toneless quality of a person trying to mask strong emotion. Steve was liking his earlier idea of hiding under the table more and more.
"Just, you know, people studies. The angle was good and I'm not good at drawing people and I mean– Wait, no, no, no, please don't!"
Natasha was standing up and grabbing his sketchbook.
Oh God, please stop her, he prayed desperately, jumping up. Apparently God wasn't going to let him get away with his lies, though, because Natasha picked the book up and flipped it open casually. He couldn't help but feel a surge of betrayal; friends didn't go through each other's stuff like this. Well, Bucky did, but only when Steve didn't really mind.
And he definitely minded about this.
He was immensely relieved he'd filed away most of his drawings of her, but there were still three (maybe four) pictures of her left in the book. One very detailed depiction of her eyes, one of her watching the movie last night, and the one he'd been working on just now. The one he was really worried about was of her dancing; it was a product of his imagination and he suddenly couldn't remember if he'd torn it out or not. Because friends didn't draw each other based on imagined scenarios, either. God, he was so stupid.
He still couldn't read her expression. There was a lump in his throat and he wanted to hit something. What kind of pervert was he, anyway? Drawing pictures of people without permission? She would think he was a stalker or something. He couldn't stop praying frantically that somehow this whole mess could be salvaged.
He already felt low enough that when she turned the page and saw the picture of herself dancing, for a moment he couldn't even find it in himself to be horrified. But then her face broke into an expression of such suspicion and anger that he took a few hasty steps back when she looked up at him.
"How did you know about this?" she hissed. And Steve, despite his terror, found himself falling in love with the way her eyes went hard and fierce and she drew herself up like some kind of fictional warrior queen.
God help him indeed.
"I just… I just… I thought you looked like a dancer and it's the way you move sometimes around the kitchen and I'm really sorry. I promise I didn't know and I'm so sorry, I know I'm a creep, I just… Sorry." He was stammering and blushing and he felt so, so horrible.
He really wouldn't complain if the ground opened up and swallowed him. That would be less embarrassing than this, and death had never scared him much anyway.
He wasn't sure whether Natasha's slight smile was a good thing, but he decided to assume it was. He needed a win.
"Calm down, Rogers," she said, and the stony coldness was gone as if it had melted away. Steve felt like he'd gotten whiplash from how fast her tone changed. "They're nice drawings." And then she walked away without another word.
Holy Mary Mother of God. Steve sat shakily down on his chair again, feeling like he'd just been run over by a freight car.
Natasha knew that, outwardly, she looked composed as she walked away. A little sassy and amused. Sexy, even. She knew how to play situations to her advantage, after all. But inwardly, she felt as shaky and confused as a newly-standing foal. Steve's stammering little explanation and obvious humiliation, combined with the pictures, were so... It took all her willpower not to turn around and confront him. Make him tell her why he was drawing her, although a terrified part of her knew full well. The sketch of her dancing especially made her want to run and hide. She couldn't do this. She didn't want little Steve Rogers to... to feel whatever the hell he felt for her. It was just infatuation – it always was, she had no trouble acknowledging that she was good looking – but Steve was... Well, Steve was a problem. Because he was an artist and an earnest, sincere person and apparently a good friend and she was a little afraid that "just infatuation" wasn't a term in his vocabulary.
People like him (good people) never seemed able to realize that it wasn't safe to be around people like her.
And, unfortunately, good people gave their hearts away far too easily.
Clint's hand was steadying on her elbow as she went back to making drinks. "Are you okay?" he murmured.
"Yeah, it's okay," she sighed. "I just... It doesn't matter."
Clint nodded, but he still looked worried as he went back to work. She couldn't blame him; she was a little worried about herself too. She felt suddenly afraid to look over at Steve in case he was looking at her again. In case he was drawing her again. She could feel his eyes on her sometimes, but she refused to acknowledge him.
…
"Liho!" Pushing open her front door that evening felt like the first time she'd breathed all day. She shut it behind her and tossed her things onto the entryway table, letting out a long sigh. Her black cat, a lithe, sleek little thing with big green-blue eyes came trotting up to her, meowing insistently. "Hello, dorogoy. Have you been good for me today?"
The cat meowed again and weaved around her legs. Natasha smiled slightly and scooped her up, scratching the top of her head. "Let's get you some food."
As she always did, she checked over her house as she made her way into the kitchen. Nothing seemed to be disturbed, although she had yet to check for bugs. Some people might call her paranoid, but she had good reason to be.
…
He was waiting for her in the apartment, seated on the couch, legs drawn up against his chest. "Hey Natalie," he said lightly.
She should have seen the signs of his entrance but she hadn't; embarrassed, she moved around to sit next to him. "Hey."
"What's going on? You getting careless, honey?" he said with a quiet chuckle, slinging his legs over hers. She rolled her eyes at him.
"No. You're just good." That was true. But it was also true that she'd gotten careless; just because she had the protection of the gang didn't make her safe.
"Whatever you say." Brock picked up a beer bottle from the floor and tipped back a long swallow.
…
Sighing, she shook her head and got a bag of food out of the cupboard, pouring the cat food into Liho's bowl. Too many memories, good and bad, today. All because of that stupid tattoo and Steve's drawings.
Not that she wasn't flattered by his artwork – that was half the problem. She should know better than to let something like that get to her, but it had. She had thought that she had her feelings under control, but she was no longer sure.
She liked to tell herself she was good at guarding her heart. And she was, but not against people like him. Not against stammering and spilled coffee and beautiful drawings. She tried to remind herself that he wasn't safe, that she knew nothing about him, that he would never be able to know anything about her beyond the surface details. And still she wished she could let him be her friend. Maybe even something more.
"Hell." She groaned and picked Liho up, who squirmed and wailed at being disturbed from her dinner. "What kind of idiot am I, huh?"
Liho meowed insistently, and Natasha put her back down so she could keep eating.
The worst kind of idiot. The kind that saw their own stupidity and kept going anyway. What was that definition of insanity again? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
Steve Rogers would cause more trouble than he was worth. She should just avoid him. She should stop all this now before it got out of control.
Even as she told herself those things, she knew she wasn't going to be able to do them. And she hated herself for it.
Steve spent almost the whole day at work distracted, replaying the humiliating morning mishap over and over in his mind until he was fairly sure he was never going to be able to face Natasha again. No matter how he spun the situation, there was no way to make it look any better. They'd only been friends (barely that, acquaintances) for a little over a month. He had no right to be drawing pictures like that of her - at least, not where she could see. Worse, he'd made her more work to do and tried to lie about what he was doing (although no one could exactly blame him for that). She was probably really pissed at him now. At the very least she was freaked out and Clint was going to deny him service tomorrow. Either way, he'd ruined the first new friendships he'd made in a long time.
Not that he was even surprised. He was good at screwing things up. It was probably his one and only talent at this point.
He stopped those thoughts as soon as he caught them, replacing them with the little list he'd made for himself with his therapist's help. I'm a good friend, I'm intelligent, I'm an artist, I'm badass (Bucky's suggestion), I'm loved by God. Sam said it wasn't enough to clear your thoughts, you had to replace them with something better. And Steve was trying.
It just wasn't easy.
He sighed and tried to focus on work. But all he succeeded in doing was sending a bill to the wrong person and prompting Pierce to come out of his office to yell at Steve for "laziness and inattention to detail." In the name of fairness, Steve admitted to the latter offense, making an excuse about how his mom wasn't doing well. Pierce, as per usual, didn't seem to care.
"You come in, Mr. Rogers, you drop the bullshit at the door. Okay? I'm not here to babysit you. You're never going to get anywhere in this company if you can't separate work and home."
Steve bit back the comment on the tip of his tongue. I'm not going to get anywhere in this company anyway.
And spent the rest of the day fighting his embarrassment and insecurity.
A/N: This chapter is a fun one, yeah? I just won't give poor Stevie a break. It's just too much fun writing him being embarrassed. XD
I apologize (only not exactly), but Steve is gonna be a Catholic Christian and I just kinda can't keep that out of the story. Steve has always kind of been my fictional character soulmate, in a way. I feel like he's a lot like me. And my faith is just so important to me and it seems like he shares it in cannon SO... Sorry if it makes you uncomfortable, but this is the way it is. You'll just have to put up with it. ;)
Thanks for continuing to read, and please review! :)
