Title: A Weird Kind of Sense
Rating: PG/K+
Originally posted: 22nd January 2022
Originally written for: buries/peaked
Characters/Pairings: Bucky/Nat
Notes: for Seasons of Drabbles Exchange, Winter 2022 at Dreamwidth and AO3; set in an AU, post-Endgame, where Natasha lived.
It made a weird kind of sense to share a place. Each needed somewhere to call home, but money was an issue. It was a tiny apartment, but big enough, better than most of the dives either one of them had endured before.
Bucky and Nat weren't exactly friends, but they had enough in common to get by. Everything from being used by Russia to loving Steve Rogers like a brother. It tied them together, made it strangely easy to be something like a team. That didn't shock Nat so much. It was finding her domestic side, as well as his, that made her feel strange. Nice strange, but still.
Tonight, they're cooking dinner together when it hits her. The whole domestic bliss thing, so much like she had seen in the Barton house so many times and secretly wished... It seemed pointless then, but not now.
Now, she has someone to pass the tomatoes when she asks, to close the refrigerator door when she forgets, to keep an eye on the spaghetti so it doesn't overcook while her back is turned. More than that, she has someone to laugh at her jokes, to put a hand on her shoulder when she gets maudlin about the losses, to speak her real name and look at her like the person she wants to be.
"Nat?"
She turns, sees concern in his eyes and finds him a smile. Searching his face, she tries to make certain she's right, fails to be entirely reassured and takes the leap anyway. He's startled, but then returns her kiss, brief as it is. When they part, they're both smiling.
"Pass the tomatoes?"
"Sure, but could you maybe learn to close the refrigerator door when you're done?"
Yes, it made a very nice, weird kind of sense.