Chapter Text
A soft, sloppy mess of a man flicked through his fifty-eighth slide. The rest of the team had already glazed over hours ago. Steve was doodling idly in the margins of the handouts, Tony had fallen asleep behind dark sunglasses, Bucky was folding elaborate paper airplanes and Bruce had slipped deep into a meditative state. Only Clint and Natasha had made it this far. A few long nights perched on rooftops increased one’s patience dramatically. But not infinitely.
“If he says ‘synergy’ one more time, I’m going to skin him alive.” She mumbled in Russian.
“My eyes are drying out.” Clint replied without moving his lips.
“I’m starving.” Bucky huffed.
“I’ve got a granola bar.” Steve dug in his pocket, producing a sadly crumpled one.
Clint, Natasha and Bucky stared at him.
“What?” He looked guilelessly back.
“Since when do you speak Russian?” Bucky asked mildly.
“Oh, I was just listening to you guys, really. Then I found a Russian soap opera I liked and it didn’t have subtitles, so I did some reading.” Steve shrugged. “I hope that’s alright, I didn’t want to intrude.”
“No. It’s fine.” Natasha said immediately, the spark of an idea taking alight. “More than fine.”
“Excuse me,” the presenter frowned, “I think this is a very important point and-”
“I’m calling a lunch break.” Steve stood up. “Back in an hour, sir.”
“You can’t just leave!”
Bruce’s eyes cracked open, glittering in the dark, “All due respect, you wouldn’t like me when I’m hungry.”
Lunch stretched long into the afternoon after the presenter fled never to return. Natasha took the unexpectedly free afternoon to move forward with her plan. She went to an art store, explained what she needed and received in return several long thin planks of wood. Back at the Tower, she retreated to the roof garden and her chair among the roses.
It took her several tries to perfect the technique of whittling the wood down to the right shape and size. She held the first finished piece in the palm of her hand and admired the simple soft corners. Making always fascinated her, balanced as it was against her natural proclivities.
Weeks went by as she turned her wood planks into a series of small squares. Sometimes she didn’t have a chance to work on her project for days, others she could spend nearly entirely on the rhythmic acts of cutting and sanding. If Clint came up with her, he didn’t offer to help, but sat at her feet, hair gathering sawdust and reading to her from the newspaper.
When the velvet bag she’d bought to hold her work felt full enough, she knocked on the door of Steve and Bucky’s suite. Technically Bucky had the rooms to the right of Steve and across the wide hall from Clint, but in practice he lived with Steve. They did not share the bed. Instead Bucky kept a neat pallet on the couch. No one said anything about it. It was hardly the strangest relationship going under this roof.
“Good morning.” Steve answered the door, half-dressed in slacks and an undershirt.
“I have a job for you. Hold out your hand.”
Steve held it out without hesitation. She dropped the bag into his hand, watched him run his fingers over the velvet.
“What is this?”
“An art project.”
Even if there had been nothing on Steve’s record about his art, she would have known it from his handwriting. There was a graceful lilt to everything he wrote, even post-its left on the coffee pot scolding whoever let the milk run out without replacing it.
It pleased her to see those slanting letters turned to her project, dark brown paint gliding over the pale wood tiles. The brush he used was whisper thin and his hand stayed steady even as she leaned over his shoulder.
“What about the board?” He asked as he blew softly over the last tile.
“I’ll think of something.”
“Let me.”
A week later, he presented her with a pine wood rectangle, brass hinges unfolding into a work of art. The grid had been drawn in bold lines, the plain squares painted a brilliant blue and the special squares highlighted in a flush pink, jade green or pale purple. Her name was written in cyrillic along the bottom, each letter highlighted in gold. In the center space that was normally graced with a black star, he’d drawn a nimble spider.
“Thank you. It's perfect.” She leaned upwards to brush a kiss over the square line of his jaw. A faint flush of pleasure rose to his cheeks.
“I liked doing it.” He dropped his eyes and shoulders. “We should play.”
“Tomorrow night in the lounge. Do you mind if Bucky and Clint join us?”
“Never.”
“Good, then it’s a date.”
They gathered around the table, armed with fresh salsa and chips still warm from the oven. Natasha set down a tiny notebook with crisp white pages and a pencil sharpened to a wicked point.
“Welcome to the inaugural game of Russian Scrabble.” Clint announced, setting down a well thumbed Russian dictionary. “If it isn’t in here, it isn’t a word.”
“I will keep score.” She added and no one protested as she wrote each of their names across the top of the page.
An hour later, the room had gone utterly quiet except for the steady crunch of chips. Pepper came in, a tinny voice shouting at her through her phone. She surveyed the area, lifted an eyebrow and hung up. A few clicks later, and the phone flashed.
“What’s that for?” Bucky scowled at the board, tossing down a ten point, two letter word.
“I want to remember what you all look like before you scartched each other to pieces.” She said mildly. “And now I’m going to go warn Bruce to stay clear. There’s enough tension in this room for three Hulks and I like the walls where they are.”
The tension never bothered Natasha. She liked the thick silence, the wrinkling of brows as they jockeyed for possession in an ocean of her native tongue and the click of tiles against the board. In the hundreds of games that followed, none of them came out as a clear champion. They played for the novelty of it, for a new battlefield. They played because so much of their lives had been full of heavy, terrible work. Mostly they played for her and that was a kindness that she could accept.