Work Text:
The first time Steve asks her out he’s only been out of the ice for a few months. She’s struck dumb for a long moment as she tries to process the fact that Steve – Captain America – the Captain America – just asked her if she wanted to join him for a dinner and a movie. It was like every one of her prepubescent fantasies come true.
Except it can’t be what she thinks – this is obviously an outing between friends, not a real date. Steve could have any girl he wanted – and while Natasha knew she was quite the catch she just couldn’t see herself as the type of woman that good old reliable Steve would be interested. Surely he’d want a girl who wanted to settle down and start a family – someone who could step into a kitchen get the urge to bake not disassemble the microwave for parts.
Truthfully, in many ways Steve was no longer her ideal partner in any romantic sense. While he was certainly growing to be a close friend, as a lover she was quite certain his idealistic ways would grow wearisome after awhile. Not to mention there were her own perceptions drawn from years of propaganda about who Captain America was. It certainly wouldn’t be fair to subject him to those unrealistic standards.
They were better off as a friends she was quite certain. Besides, it wasn’t as if she had any place to be this Christmas Eve – no family of her own to visit with both Pepper, Happy, and Rhodey out visiting theirs. Steve didn’t have any one either, obviously. They were just two friends hanging out together during the holidays and keeping one another company.
She keeps right on believing it – even when Steve looks disappointed in her choice of restaurant (she’d been absolutely craving a hot dog and Grays Papaya was the only place to go for one), even though he’d paid for their dinner, and their tickets to some romantic comedy that Natasha really hadn’t wanted to see but there wasn’t anything better playing. Even when Steve yawns, stretches and drops his arm around her shoulders she figures he must have pulled a muscle fighting those AIM foot soldiers the other day in Queens.
She keeps on denying it right up to the point where Steve leans over and kisses her cheek chastely. Her heart stutters to a stop as her eyes widen in shock. She doesn’t have to look away from the screen to see how he’s watching her reaction with trepidation – his nervousness is just that palpable.
They sit in tense silence until the film rolls to a stop and the lights come up in the auditorium. She faces him finally – struggling to keep her face neutral, especially because he looks so hesitant.
“Steve –”
“Natasha –“
“You first—”
“Go ahead –”
They both take deep breaths, looking away from one another. She must be crazy – everyone’s called her crazy at one point or another but what she’s about to do is absolutely one hundred percent insane.
“ Steve,” She swallows, forcing herself to look him in the eye. “You’re a great guy but—”
“You’re just not interested in me,” Steve says softly, looking so understanding and okay with it and it absolutely kills her.
“No—” She sighs, “Steve, you’ve only been out of the ice for a few months. You’ve not really had a chance to adjust—”
“What does that have to do with the two of us,” Steve snaps – actually snaps at her. His shoulders have grown tight and defensive – and the sight of it only strengthens her resolve. The two of them – right now especially – would just be a disaster. She’s more than happy to help him adjust to the modern world, but she’s not going to do it like that – it will only make it harder when everything ends.
“Steve, I don’t think you’re ready for me. I’m not like the women you’re used to.” She tries to smile and probably fails miserably, “When you’re more adjusted, then maybe we can talk again.”
What she doesn’t say is that by the time he’s ‘more adjusted’ he’ll probably have found someone else. Someone far more appropriate for him. Someone who liked swing music instead of heavy metal. Someone who can’t wait to get married, buy the house with the white picket fence and pop out two kids in short order.
She’d never be suited to that sort of life. She’d be bored out of her mind in the suburbs within thirty minutes.
Ever the gentleman Steve walks with her back to mansion’s door. He doesn’t come in with her though – says he needs to stretch his legs as he wanders off back into the night.
She watches his back get swallowed by the murky darkness of the city and reminds herself that she’s doing this for him.
***///***///***
The next time Steve asks her out it is years later. In the mean time, just as she had predicted, Steve had found someone else. Sharon Carter wasn’t exactly the type that Natasha had thought Steve would go for, but she wasn’t one to judge. While she had never personally gotten along well with the other woman she would reluctantly admit to herself on dark lonely nights that it probably had a little bit to do with the fact they had similar workaholic personalities – probably more than a little related, in fact.
It’s a good match – Sharon was attractive (very attractive Natasha had no shame in admitting), and she was a soldier like Steve. They had a lot in common. It all made sense. They were like… Ken and Barbie, a matching set. Tall, blonde, athletic, attractive, all American – she could go on for ages.
She was happy for him – he deserved happiness and Sharon made him happy. That nagging twisting feeling in her chest – that had to be indigestion; or maybe the shrapnel was shifting. She should get that checked – maybe.
They’re perfect one another -- which is why she’s a little surprised at the words that come next out of his mouth.
“Would you like to go out with me,” He asks, looking as slightly abashed.
“What about you and—”
“Sharon and I are… no longer together,” Steve cuts her off. Natasha is quiet for a long moment.
“That’s – too bad.”
She really should get that pang in her chest looked at.
“It was a while ago.”
She blinks at that – when did that happen? Why hadn’t she heard about it?
Her cell phone buzzes loudly and she knows without looking that it’s a reminder from Pepper about the board meeting tomorrow morning. The thought of it alone was enough to leave her gasping for a drink. Drinking again -- another thing that would disappoint Steve even though he could hardly understand what she was going through. It wasn’t like he had to deal with Dorothea Stane breathing down his neck.
Steve is looking at her so hopefully – and it is so tempting to just give in to those blue eyes.
The phone rings – Indries’ ringtone – and her stomach flutters. Finally, she hasn’t heard from the other woman in almost a week.
“Sorry, Steve,” She says, grabbing the phone and pulling it close to her. “I’ve already got somebody.”
He nods and excuses himself as she takes the phone call. She’s happy with Indries – they’re a much better match than she and Steve.
***///***///***
She’s forced to tackle some hard truths when she finally manages to crawl out of the swamp of despair and booze. It’s part of the recovery process, and no matter how painful she has to face them.
Fact: Natasha Stark is an alcoholic.
Fact: Natasha Stark will always and forever be an alcoholic.
Fact: Natasha Stark might just be in love with Steven Rogers.
She’s tried to avoid the very idea of the two of them together. She’s dismissed him, rather unfairly at times, as being too old fashioned for her – too different for them to ever work. Except that it wasn’t exactly true – certainly his ongoing (if troubled) relationship with Sharon showed that Steve was more than capable of handling a thoroughly modern woman.
The very thought of Steve loving her terrifies her – more than that, the idea of him loving and leaving her leaves her absolutely petrified. Because those she loves run away or are taken from her in the end. If Indries leaving her had completely devastated her, then Steve’s abandonment would surely kill her. Her pride chafes at the very idea of being so dependent on anyone.
A small voice in her head – the same voice that has haunted her for years, the one that doesn’t ever seem to go away no matter how much she drinks – whispers that if he knew who she really was he wouldn’t care about her anymore.
Except that he did know – he’d seen her at her darkest hour – several of them in fact. He’d still been there for her, tried to help her, still cared about her afterwards.
How can he still care for you, still think of you romantically after all that he’s seen – the voice rebuts, because she’s never be able defeat it with mere logic before. God, if it were only that simple.
No, she has no way of knowing if Steve loved her – after all she’d done or even before, the voice is one hundred percent right on that one. However, until he tells her one way or another – she has no way of knowing how he feels. She could drive herself crazy evaluating every moment of the times they had spent together trying to calculate probabilities when it would probably be as accurate as pulling petals off a daisy.
Love trapped in Schrödinger’s box – no way of knowing if it’s dead or alive until she opens the box.
There would be time for that later, however. The first thing she needed to do was get her life straightened out – because Natasha Stark pined away for no man, even if it was Captain America. Died valiantly trying to save him was certainly acceptable, but dying of a broken heart like a love sick teenager was absolutely out of the question.
Then, once she was on firmer footing with her sanity and her life was back in order – then she could inquire further about Steve’s intentions towards her.
***///***///***
Two years later, on Christmas Eve, she works up the nerve to ask Steve out on a date – a real date, not one between just friends.
Steve says yes.