The electricity cut out at 8:46 exactly. Natalia knew because that was when her stream shut off and the last tip rolled in. She cursed a few times, knowing she'd have to find some way to make up for lost revenue, but then put herself together enough to pack up her shooting set up before she knocked over one of the big expensive lights. She put the long blonde wig on the mounted mannequin head and hung her silky blue robe beneath it before realizing that she couldn't spend the rest of the night illuminated by her cellphone. Despite what she originally believed, Nat did not have any candles left in her apartment. She'd used them up in an attempt to clear away the smell of her terrible attempt at making Greek food. All that was left was half an inch of a citrus candle that she was betting wouldn't last more than an hour before putting itself out.
So, after a frustratingly fruitless search, Nat gave up and dressed herself in two pairs of sweatpants and a loose t-shirt decorated by the Barton kids' elementary school mascot. She shoved her feet into some beat up old Adidas sneakers and smartly snagged her winter coat before stepping out of her apartment.
Natalia Romonova, officially Natasha Romanoff, had been living in the same apartment for four years and she only knew one of her neighbors. There was a Ukranian couple who lived a few doors down and had just had a baby, a little boy named Konstantin. She sincerely doubted that they would appreciate being awoken. So, the next best option was Mr. Coat.
The stairwell was pitch black and absolutely freezing. Natalia pulled her coat tightly around her body while she shuffled up the stairs. Thankfully, she only had to climb one floor before she could escape the icebox that was the eastern stairwell.
The door to apartment 9E was completely undecorated, not even a Welcome doormat to wipe ones' feet on. It wasn't exactly a notable detail on its own, but most of the apartments in the building were decorated by some kitchy Christmas wreath, plastic menorah, or string of non-denominational twinkle lights. It seemed that Mr. Coat didn't want to be noticed.
He even looked somewhat disgruntled when he swung open his door. Nat realized she was shining her light directly at his chest and turned it down to face the floor. She tried very hard not to notice that his left arm was missing.
"Do you have any candles?" She asked.
"Candles?" He'd clearly been asleep, his voice was almost an octave lower than it had been that morning.
"Candles. The lights are out."
"Yeah, I noticed," he said, glancing behind her at the dark hallway. "You want candles?"
"Because the lights are out," she nodded, not sure why she felt the need to push his buttons. He looked so needlessly grumpy that she felt the overwhelming desire to poke at him.
It took him a moment of consideration, but he eventually turned and walked away from the door. Natalia hesitated for half a second before following him in and shutting the door behind herself. It seemed that Mr. Coat didn't actually need to see anything to find the candles, though she did attempt to illuminate his path with her cellphone light.
On the way to the hall closet, she passed behind the couch and found the missing left arm resting on some fancy charging mount. How hadn't she noticed that it was a prosthetic? He'd taken off his coat in front of her, she should have seen it. But then again, it wasn't like any of the fake limbs she'd ever seen. It looked a lot like Stark Tech.
"So you do own a winter coat, then?"
Natalia's head snapped up and she redirected her light to help her neighbor locate what he was looking for.
"Yeah, I just... didn't expect to be leaving so early," she responded, leaning against the wall. "Not that I need it in here. How're you keeping this place so warm?"
"Space heaters," he shrugged, pulling out a little plastic bag of tealights. There were maybe a dozen left. "Is this enough for the night?"
"I could probably make them stretch, yeah," Nat nodded, reaching out for the bag. "Do you have enough for yourself if I take these?"
"Those are the only ones I have, but I think I'll survive."
Natalia frowned at that, examining the candles and then looking back up at her neighbor. "At least let me trade with you."
"Trade? What do you want to trade?" He raked a hand through his nearly shoulder-length brown hair in a sign of clear frustration. She was suddenly reminded of Konstantin's grumpy Ukranian grandfather.
"I have wine downstairs. I had one glass earlier this evening, but it's still mostly full. It's a good bottle, too."
"You don't have to do that," he protested. Natalia held up her hand to stop him.
"I don't like having any debts," she insisted. "I'll tell you what: I'll bring up the bottle and a couple of wine glasses. You light the candles. That way you don't crack your shin on anything and I don't have to drink alone."
There was a suspended quiet, only the huffing of a nearby space heater and a far away siren between them. Mr. Coat let out a resigned sigh and nodded, reaching out and gesturing for her to give him the bag of candles back.
"Good," she agreed, depositing the bag in his right hand and wheeling around to face the door. She paused with one foot already in the hall, looking back at the vague shape of her neighbor. "My name is Natasha."
"James," he responded from the darkness near the closet.
Neither of them spoke until they'd both finished two glasses of wine and Nat had started her third.
"Did you like the food?" She asked, pulling the heavy quilt higher on her lap.
"So you did send it, then?" James had a tendency to respond to a question with a question.
Nat cleared her throat and set down her glass next to one of the three burning candles. They'd done the math; there were 13 candles that would each burn for three hours each and ten hours until the sun rose.
"I wasted your breakfast, I thought it was only appropriate to buy you dinner."
James hummed, set down his glass opposite hers, and started to roll his metal wrist. She had avoided staring directly at his prosthetic arm, but the motion caught her attention. It was so advanced that it had to be at least a Stark competitor. There was no logo, though.
"Did you like it, then?"
He didn't seem to plan on responding until he looked up at her and found her waiting patiently.
"I'm not the biggest fan of sweet and sour soup. But the chicken was good," he lied, knowing fully well that the food was still in the paper bag it had arrived in on the second shelf of his refrigerator. "I appreciate the gesture, nonetheless."
"Wasting money on a gesture is better than wasting money any other way," Nat shrugged, pouring more into both glasses. "Where are you from, James?"
"Why does that matter?" He asked, cocking an eyebrow.
"Because I want to know which genepool I have to hunt in to find another face that looks like that," she teased. "It's polite conversation. I can go first if it makes you feel better: I'm from suburban Ohio. Moved out here too young so that I could work, haven't left since."
"You don't look like a Suburbanite," He noted, appraising her like he might a fairly uninteresting statue.
"What do I look like, then?"
He gave her a look that said he knew better than to answer that question. Her tone made it clear that she would feign offense to anything he could possibly have come back with.
"I'm from Brooklyn," he shrugged, picking up his glass and taking a big gulp. Home was a sensitive topic, then.
"You never really left the city, then?" She followed up, changing topics somewhat.
"I left for a good four years, actually," he said quietly, raising his glass to her. She was confused until she realized that he was drawing attention to his metal arm, not the glass. Her eyes flickered to his chest and found that, beneath the t-shirt and sweater he put while she was grabbing the wine, she could see the faint shape of dog tags. How could she have missed so many details?
"Believe it or not, I used to be considered fun at one point." His deadpan delivery did make her chuckle, but he was clearly covering up some bitterness that she wasn't responsible for addressing.
"Oh, I believe it. No one that wears that much cologne isn't fun."
"I don't wear that much cologne," James protested.
Nat laughed again. "I probably still smell like you, not that that's a bad thing."
"No?"
"No," she nodded. "But unless you baked orange cookies over a wood fire immediately before handing over the coat, you definitely wear that much cologne."
James genuinely laughed for the first time that night and Natasha felt like she'd won some invisible prize. "You could have kept the coat, you know."
"It looked expensive," she shrugged, curling her legs up under the blanket. "Like I said, I don't like to owe anyone."
"I don't either."
Mutual respect seemed to float between them. She didn't bother asking anymore questions, he didn't seem eager to answer. The quiet was more comfortable than it had been before at least.
She dozed off some time between the first round of candles and the second, but when she came to, James was sat in the same position. Only he had a small weathered book in his lap.