A Short Explanation of Shipping, As Told by the New Avengers

Wanda didn't even know what shipping was until Vision told her, but she shipped Steve and Natasha from the first time she saw them interacting.

She had the advantage of being able to read their minds, but Steve's emotions were obvious to anyone with eyes. Natasha was trickier to read, but she had a tremendous amount of admiration for Steve, admiration that was confused by swirling fears and self-hatred and chaos.

There were times when Wanda just wanted to make them kiss – she could, after all, and they really needed the extra prompting – but she never did, settling for leaving little hints in their heads. Making Natasha think I wonder what kissing him would feel like, making Steve think I really oughta just tell her how I feel. Vision caught her at it once, and told her, with a faint smile, that he "shipped" Romanogers too. He then had to explain to her the internet phenomenon of shipping, which made her laugh.

Vision shipped them rather differently. He was, after all, an artificial intelligence and had no emotional investment in the idea of a relationship between the two. However, reviewing their files and past interactions, it made sense to him. They complimented each other's attributes quite nicely; the proverb "opposites attract" seemed to fit them superbly. (Although Vision thought the proverb itself was ridiculous, he could appreciate its meaning.)

He had difficulty deciphering facial expressions (although his data banks had helpful tips), but he was fairly sure that Captain Rogers felt some form of affection for Agent Romanoff. It was difficult to tell what kind, though, and Romanoff was very nearly impossible to understand.

But he was sure that his math and statistics were correct: Captain Rogers and Agent Romanoff would be quite psychologically compatible, and if they were to breed, would conceive ideal children. But since that didn't seem like an acceptable thing to say to either of them, he kept those thoughts to himself.

Sam had been trying to get Steve and Natasha together for a while now. His problem, he decided, was mostly a lack of subtlety. He kept trying to give Steve hints, mostly things like, "Just ask her out already, man!" but for some reason, that never worked. If Steve wasn't so emotionally constipated, maybe it would have.

So he resorted to glaring silently at the two of them as they sparred and ate breakfast and watched movies and talked to each other and somehow didn't manage to say anything important. He even tried to get the Maximoff girl to make them talk about their feelings but she refused, although not before admitting that she really wanted to.

He was a therapist. Would it be too hard to believe if he told Steve that a relationship with Natasha would be good for therapeutic reasons? Probably, but it was worth a try, because subtlety wasn't his thing.

Luckily, subtlety was Bucky's thing. Luckily because by the time he showed up, Steve had royally messed up. At first it was no biggie (aw hey, you got some action, good for you, Stevie) but then later, when he saw the way Steve and Natasha interacted, he wanted to smack his idiot friend. He wasn't sure what Steve had been doing kissing that blond girl when he had this dame around. Frankly, if it weren't for the obvious mutual pining going on, Bucky might've tried courting Natasha himself.

Well, he did that anyway.

Nothing like a little flirting to make Steve jealous; it was obvious that he considered Natasha his girl, and it take a lot of work to get him fuming. Just a wink or two, a hey, you wanna get a drink sometime?, and Steve was mad enough to yell at him. In fact, he was mad enough to yell at him where Natasha could hear, because Bucky may or may not have made sure that when Steve finally blew up at him, he wouldn't realize that Natasha was right around the corner in the common room listening to Steve declaring that she was, in fact, his girl, and he'd be damned if Bucky stole her from him.

It was hilarious.

What was more hilarious, though, was Natasha's reaction. She came barreling around the corner, smacked Bucky in the face for being a manipulative son of a bitch, and pulled Steve into a very passionate kiss.

And Bucky had no qualms about giving a piercing wolf-whistle and then running off to brag to Sam that he was the one who got Steve to admit his feelings and not some up-start slow-poke therapist. Because what the hell was Steve doing making new best friends while he was gone, anyway?

A/N: From an Anonymous Tumblr prompt: can you write a romanogers fic where the new avengers ships steve and nat? ily

Because my emotionally constipated babies have the most obvious sexual tension ever and WON'T JUST GET MARRIED ALREADY so yeah. Welcome to the fluffiness.

Please review!