You Saw Nothing
$ log - you've read steve's sixty-page manual cover to cover. you've highlighted the relevant sections, so you're completely fine. natasha romanov is just your very good friend and you don't know what he thinks he saw in that corridor in rome but it wasn't that. $ warn --sfw --suggestive --afab!reader --established-relationship $ wc -w 1.3k $ cd masterlist / natasha-romanov # note = gaslighting steve-esque.
Steve asked to speak with you on a Tuesday. Serious business.
His serious conversations happen in his office, always. You sat across the desk, ready for a demerit, twiddling your thumbs for forty-five seconds before he said, perfectly calm:
"So, you and Natas—"
"We aren't together."
He blinked. You hadn't let him finish the sentence at all.
Steve folded his hands on the desk with the patience of a man committed to the bit. He reached into his drawer and produced a list. You stared, disturbed, to discover it was laminated.
"The Budapest safehouse," he said, "the showers."
The showerhead had run hot for exactly four minutes before going arctic. Natasha had clocked it immediately.
"Back to back," she’d said. "Four minutes. Don't use all the hot water."
So you had stood back to back in four inches of tiled space, staring at the grout, thinking about absolutely nothing. The mission, the contact, maybe some of the supply routes.
"You're tense," she’d said, from six inches behind your left ear.
"I'm fine."
"Your shoulders are basically earrings right now."
"That's just how my —"
Her hand moved between your shoulder blades. Flat-palmed, warm, resting there. Your shoulders dropped two inches without permission.
"There," she’d said, like it was simple. Like she hadn't made your brain go blank.
The hot water cut out, but neither of you moved for thirty seconds.
You emerged to find her at the debrief table, hair damp, reading like none of it had happened. She held out a towel without looking up.
"You're catastrophic," she said pleasantly.
"You started it."
"I handed you a towel."
"Before that."
She looked up. Her mouth wore a rationed almost-smile and she held your gaze a beat too long. "Go to sleep," she said. "You're on first watch."
You lay on your side of the room and stared at the ceiling for a very long time.
"All girls do that," you told Steve.
He opened his mouth, and closed it. Then, he opened it again. "Back to back. In a shower."
"It's efficient."
"In a —" He stopped, and visibly recalibrated. "I grew up in Brooklyn. I know how girls are with each other —"
"Then you get it."
"I don't think I —" He looked at the list, then at you. "I lived in a barracks for years. Men don't do that."
"We're not men."
"I'm aware —"
"Different social norms. Women are tactile. It's completely normal."
Steve stared at you with the expression of a man losing a fight he’d already spent hours preparing for. He wrote something on the list. "Prague," he said. "Sleeping arrangements."
Natasha had claimed the centre of the mattress immediately upon arrival. You’d stood in the doorway with your go-bag, looking at the sliver of space remaining.
"You did that on purpose."
"The room has one bed."
"You're in the middle of it."
"I'm a restless sleeper." She pulled the blanket up, serene. "Floor looks fine."
You took the sliver. Then you woke up past 3am facing the ceiling — which wasn't how you’d fallen asleep. Nat's head was on your shoulder, with her arm sling across your ribs. She weighed nothing. You lay in the dark, running a thorough diagnostic of your entire life.
You didn't move — a proper tactical decision. Natasha coming awake suddenly in an unfamiliar room was dangerous. That was the only reason.
You fell back asleep with your nose in her hair. She smelled like soap — clean, sharp. You had the thought, soft-edged with sleep, that you'd know it in any room. Any dark.
She told you three months later she’d been awake the whole time. On the common room couch, her feet in your lap, not looking up from her book. Casual. I didn't want to move. You were warm.
Like that explained everything.
"It's a friendship thing," you told Steve. "Girls sleep close. It's comforting."
"You were—" He paused, mouth fumbling to choose his words correctly. "Intertwined is the word I'd use."
"We were cold."
"It was July."
"Prague is cold in July."
"It really isn't —" He stopped himself, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I shared bunks with men for four years. We did not —"
"Again, not men."
"I know you're not —" He breathed. "I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm saying it seemed like —" he gestured vaguely — "more than friendly."
"We're very good friends."
He looked at you, and you just stared back, completely calm. He glanced at the list, then back up. "The Rome corridor. After the debrief. I saw you —"
"I was patting down my lipstick."
"— I saw you ki —" He stopped, trying to replay it. "Patting down your lipstick."
"Mouths near. Close proximity. You caught an angle."
The debrief had run three hours. Nat had walked out looking the way she looked when things went exactly to plan — settled, luminous, that satisfaction she kept close to the chest. She’d glanced at you in the corridor.
You’d had four seconds of good judgment. Then it ran out completely.
You’d kissed her. Stepped into her space and did it, hand to her jaw, heart doing something humiliating the whole time.
She kissed back. Both hands came up to frame your face — deliberate, unhurried. When she pulled back, she looked at you like you were something she’d made her mind up about.
"Took you long enough," she said.
"I was strategising."
"For a whole month."
"It's a nuanced situation."
She laughed. The real one — the one she didn't usually let people near. It did something catastrophic to your chest. You stood in a corridor in Rome watching it happen and thought, with total clarity: I am in so much trouble.
You genuinely hadn't seen Steve at the end of the hallway. This was mortifying. You had a commendation for surveillance — framed.
"Patting down your lipstick," Steve repeated.
"Mm."
"Both of you."
"She was helping."
"She was —" He stopped, sighing as he stared at the desk. "I don't —" He looked like a man trying to stand on a moving floor. "I know what I saw."
"You saw us close together."
"Very close."
"We're close friends."
"In a way that —" He exhaled, long and slow. "Women are — you're saying this is normal."
"Completely normal."
He looked at the list, then the ceiling — he was hoping the Heavens above had more useful answers than you. He put the list down.
"I want you to know," he said, in a different voice, quieter, "I'm fine with it. I've watched you two for eight months. You're better together on ops, not worse. She's different with you. I don't know if she knows how much, but she is. I'm glad she has that."
The office was quiet. You’d read the manual. Section 14, highlighted in yellow. Intra-team romantic relationships are not recommended and must be disclosed to team leadership. You’d been so careful.
"We've been together a while," you said. "We're moving in. We were going to tell everyone at the housewarming party."
Steve rubbed his forehead. "Everyone already knows. Tony's had a group chat since February. Clint had a date in the pool, and then Sam won thirty dollars."
You sat with that.
"The bite mark," he added, very carefully, "at the Lisbon debrief. Nat's collarbone." A pause. "That was the one that really settled it for the group chat."
You’d felt very bitey that night. That was between you, God, and apparently the full Avengers roster plus support staff.
"The shower thing was genuinely nothing," you said. "On the record."
"I believe you," he said, in a tone that meant he did not believe you at all.
"Steve."
"It's noted."
"She's going to find this so funny."
"She already does." He nodded toward the frosted glass panel behind you.
You turned. The unmistakable silhouette of Natasha, leaning against the wall, shoulders shaking. You faced forward.
"We're very happy together," you said, with what remained of your dignity.
"I could tell," said Steve. "From the corridor. In Rome." He paused. "You had a commendation for surveillance."
"I'm aware."
"Framed, I think."
"Steve."
"Just noting it," he said, and looked at the ceiling again.
$ tag @twentytomidnight @i-gotta-go-so-much-bigger @froggibus
$ join taglist
$ cd masterlist / natasha-romanov
