Old Friends Chapter 7
By: Cadet Deming
I don't own the rights to Captain America or The Avengers, Marvel and Disney do, so please don't sue. Rated T for violence, language and adult situations. Please read and review, it's very motivating.
Natasha scooped out the ice cream Steve had brought into two bowls. It was mint with chocolate chips. She needed chocolate after the day she had.
He said, "You have a nice apartment, although…"
"Although what?' she asked as she licked a stray splash of the dessert off of her finger.
Steve stared at her finger after she pulled it from her lips. He seemed a little tense.
"It's beautiful, but it doesn't look like anyone actually lives here, likes it's a fantasy out of Architectural Digest Magazine."
She looked around her place. It was decorated with shades of grey. The kitchen was filled with state of the art stainless steel appliances that were literally stainless. It opened to the living and dining area. Natasha preferred living in an open floor plan loft-setting because it made it harder for any potential attackers to hide behind a door.
There were a few decorations from foreign places she'd visited, but she didn't have any photographs displayed, except for one of her and Clint. She had been debating taking it down. If she took it down, things would feel final.
Natasha said, "The bedroom is more lived-in."
Steve gulped, although he hadn't swallowed any food yet.
She said, "Honestly I spend so much time on missions, I think I've literally only spent the night here 120 days total for the past year. It's more like a hotel room for me. A hotel I spend $3,000 a month for."
Steve took a spoonful of ice cream. "So it doesn't really feel like your home."
She realized how rootless she felt. Her apartment was a bit sterile.
She asked, "Does your apartment feel like home?"
Steve sighed. "No. No it doesn't. I miss Brooklyn. Except when I've gone back to my old neighborhood, it's a totally different world than I remember."
She said, "You know what they say: You can never go home again."
"You can create a new one with friends, family, loved ones. Home is more about the people than the place."
He stared very intently at her, like he was looking through her to her core. From anyone else it would have made her uncomfortable, but there was something so optimistic about Steve that made her like being around him.
She asked, "So what do you want to watch? Aside from a romantic comedy?"
"What do you want to see?"
"How about The Bachelor?"
"What's it about?"
"It's this reality show where they find these ridiculously good-looking, successful men in their 30's who claim they can't find the right woman and have to go on TV to find love. The contestants are women, almost always white and never bigger than a size 6, who pretend they're madly in love with and want to marry a guy they spent no more than 36 total hours with. They stare into the camera and say things like "I'm not here to make friends." The guy eliminates them in these rose ceremonies, and the couples almost always break up before they can actually get married."
The look of skepticism on Steve's face was priceless.
Steve said, "In 1945, no one would have dreamed of going on TV to pretend to find a wife. Is this the show you really want to be watching after a break-up?"
"After having people shoot at me all day long, sometimes I just want to unwind with mindless escapism. You're right, it's not the best choice. How about an action movie?"
He nodded and she selected a Kung-Fu movie. She settled in on her couch next to Steve. Most of her décor may have been cold, but at least the couch was comfortable.
He took his jacket off and draped it over the side. He wore a sleeveless shirt. It showed off his broad shoulders and muscular arms. For a moment she wondered if he was trying to be seductive, but pushed it out of her mind. Steve was so shy with women he wouldn't know where to begin.
The movie was subtitled, so she only paid half-attention. She caught Steve giving her side-glances.
About twenty minutes in to the movie he said, "If you don't mind me asking, who broke up with who?"
"It was a mutual decision."
She tried to tell herself she wasn't lying technically. She didn't want to lie to Captain America.
He said, "Mutual? Is that why you still have a picture of the two of you up?"
"We just broke up today, I haven't had time to get rid of it. Why do you care?"
"I just want to know if you're looking to move on. Keeping the picture shows you haven't."
"Why would you care if I'm looking to move on?"
"Because I…because I'm your friend."
She sensed Steve's recent changes in behavior weren't just her imagination. Natasha looked back on how he reacted to her breakup, little comments he made and looks he gave her. She read between the lines.
Natasha swallowed her last spoonful of ice cream and thought of how to react, what she should say. She had tried to set him up with other women because she thought he was a great guy and was just too shy to approach anyone on his own. While she was with Clint she wasn't seriously considering dating anyone else.
She asked, "Why did you really come over tonight?"
He squeezed the spoon in his hand and set it in his bowl. She saw he'd twisted it. He was strong enough to have warped the metal in his hands, not that spoons hadn't been bent near ice cream before.
Steve said, "No matter what happens, no matter what I tell you, I value our friendship and don't want that to be ruined. I could try to come up with some suave line that would be something from a movie, but that just isn't me and I know you'd see through it. So I'll just be direct and stop trying to play all these weird modern dating rituals. I like you a lot. I'm extremely attracted to you. I feel like there's a connection between us and I'd want you to at least consider me as something more than just a friend."
"So the entire time I was trying to fix you up with other girls, the real reason you didn't go for them was because you were hoping I'd be fixing you up with me instead."
"I wouldn't say the entire time."
"Your timing is bad. I haven't even been single for a full day."
He said. "In our line of work, where we can die in the line of fire at any moment, should we be waiting over arbitrary dating rules? I never even danced with the first woman I fell for because I waited too long to and ended up getting frozen in ice for 75 years and she's now dying in an Alzheimer's Ward and can barely remember me. I don't want to miss out again by waiting too long to say how I feel. Do you feel anything for me?"
Natasha looked inside of herself. Being around Steve made her feel safe. He made her feel like a better person.
She said, "I like you, and you aren't exactly hard on the eyes, but I don't want to rush into anything."
"I'm not asking you to rush, I'm just saying give things a chance. Go on an actual date with me, kiss me for real. Just give it a chance."
She put her hands on his shoulders and leaned in.
She said, "Can we do this, and not get distracted? Can we keep this from interfering in our fight against HYDRA?"
"I can if you can."
"Slowly" she said.
They kissed, and she tasted sugar. He hugged her and she couldn't deny there was chemistry. Would it be so wrong for her to find solace with him? Would it be so bad to try to find happiness with a man who made her feel safer than anyone else in the world?
His hands slid lower, but she stopped him and said, "I said slowly."
"Slow is good. I'll take a yellow light over a red."
He kissed her again.
She whispered, "Slow is very good."
To be continued.