#natsteve

“I wasn’t sure if you were ever gonna get off that couch,” Natasha says, a smirk playing on her lips as she hands Steve two steaming mugs of tea, one for each of them, and slips under the sheets next to Steve.

Rolling his eyes fondly, Steve chuckles a bit and gives Nat her mug back when she has gotten comfortable. “What can I say,” Steve says, peering over the edge of the mug, then takes a careful sip. “It’s a nice couch. Good for napping… And cuddling,” he adds.

“It is,” Nat agrees easily and brings her mug to her lips.

Somehow, she had convinced Steve to cancel the rest of his meetings for the day and go home instead of sleeping on the couch in his office at the compound. Yes, it was a nice couch and all, but nothing beats their soft bed and blankets, which seems to be exactly what Steve needs tonight.

They put on some random reality show that they agree is so stupid it’s entertaining while drinking their tea. The steam and warmth from the tea makes Steve’s nose run, though, and he has to push the cuff of his long-sleeved t-shirt to his nose a few times when he sniffles become too insistent to ignore.

Nat passes him a couple of tissues and takes the now empty mug from his hand and puts it on the bedside table. She’s starting to get tired, too, after coming home from the mission earlier, and she yawns into the fabric of Steve’s shirt as she nuzzles her face into his shoulder.

“Tired?” Steve asks, raising a knowing eyebrow.

“Mhmm,” she hums, closing her eyes and sighs deeply.

“Let’s get some sleep then, hm?”

Nat just nods, scooting closer to Steve and drapes her arm across his waist, head resting on Steve’s shoulder. She faintly remembers the feeling of Steve’s lips on her forehead, a few sniffly kisses placed right above her eyebrow, before everything goes quiet.

——

Most of the team would probably think that Nat’s a light sleeper, that she can sense whenever something’s up, even in her sleep. And she can, when they’re on missions and stuff like that. But here, at home with Steve, she feels safe and comfortable enough to let herself fully relax.

However, she does stir when she feels the foundation beneath her head begins to shift, and then suddenly there’s a lack of warmth and contact and what is that sound?

She blinks her eyes open, squinting slightly, to see Steve sit on edge of bed, ready to push himself into a standing position.

“Hey,” she croaks before Steve can get to his feet, propping herself up on her elbow. She’s a little more awake now, and more concerned, too. She casts a glance at the digital clock on Steve’s bedside table and frowns when she sees that it’s only just past 2 a.m. “Where you going?”

Steve flinches almost imperceptibly when he hears her voice, then turns to face her. He looks tired, Natasha notices, even more than when they went to sleep just a few hours earlier. He looks a little frustrated, too, now that she thinks of it. Not like he’s angry or anything, but he’s wearing that frown that tells her something’s not right.

“I’m s-sorry, I was—“ Steve breaks off to cough harshly into the crook of his elbow, his other hand clenching the sheets tightly. The coughs sound terrible, throat-scraping and taxing, leaving Steve gasping for air.

Nat sits up a little straighter and turns on the small beside lamp that emits a weak, warm light that isn’t too harsh on their eyes. Then she rubs Steve’s back through his shirt, and it’s clammy and sticky, clinging to his skin. She can feel the heat coming off of him, too, and it’s really no wonder why he has sweat through his shirt.

“I was t-trying snf! trying not to wake you,” he finishes when his breathing has become somewhat stable. “Couldn’t sleep,” he explains when Natasha asks why he’s even up in the first place. “Can’t,” he amends and rubs a hand over his face.

His hair is all disheveled, probably from tossing and turning his head around his pillow, trying to get into a comfortable position without waking Nat. His eyes are watery, too, like they’re too tired to not tear up. He gives her a small smile, though, looking both apologetic and grateful.

“I’m sorry you’re feeling this bad, honey,” Nat says earnestly. “You should’ve woken me up…”

Steve shakes his head lightly, then pushes a bent index finger under his nose and sniffles a couple times. “N-no, you juuh! snf! you just got home… huh! uhhEISH’oo! heh? h! hH! huhh—TCHshh! ISH!”

The second of the triple teases him for a few seconds, making his shoulders hitch with each wavering breath until he finally gasps. He curls in on himself with the sneezes, too, aiming them down at his chest as he doesn’t really have the energy to do anything more than that.

“Sorry…” he mumbles, his voice low and rough sounding.

“Bless you, Steve,” Nat says and leans up to kiss his shoulder. “I’m gonna get you some medicine, okay? To get your fever down and hopefully knock you out, too. Oh, and a new shirt, this one’s all damp,” she adds and smooths a hand over his back to feel the sticky material again.

“Okay, yeah… it’s probably all germy, too, since I… y’know.” Steve gestures vaguely to his face and then to his chest where he had directed the sneezes at. He smiles a little self-deprecatingly and Nat returns it with one of her own, gentle and fond.

“Right.” She starts sliding her hands underneath the shirt, then pulls it over his shoulders and head, mussing his hair even more. He helps with getting the last bit of his head through the hole and crumples the shirt into a ball in his hand.

Steve shivers as the cool air hits his bare skin, hairs rising on his arms, goosebumps all over. Then he tenses, the muscles on his back flexing and becoming even more visible than through the tight fitting tee. His breath comes in small shallow puffs of air before smothering his face into the fabric in his hand and succumbing to the ticklish itch in his nose.

“Huhh! huhUSHmphh! heh, eh! eptCHmffhh! Ugh…”

He muffles the sneezes into the the shirt, though Nat can still hear how forceful they are, see it, too, in the way Steve jerks and his shoulders hunch.

“God bless,” she whispers and nuzzles a kiss into the crook of Steve’s neck. “I’ll be right back,” she promises and slips out of bed to fetch the medicine, a new shirt and some more tissues.

When she comes back, Steve doesn’t argue with her, even though he hates the medicine. He’s tired and groggy enough that it couldn’t really make him feel a lot worse, and it might even knock him out like Nat had said. While they wait for the meds to kick in, they snuggle up in bed again, good and close. There’s a couple soft, strong sneezes, too, that he catches against the tissues Nat passes him or against his shoulder, into the clean shirt that’ll probably also need washing in the morning.

Nat had just come out of debrief for her and Clint’s last mission when she headed towards Steve’s office at the compound, finding the door ajar and leaned against the doorframe with crossed arm and a warm smile on her lips.

“Hey there, soldier,” she drawled in a low voice, trying not to be too loud as she could tell Steve was on a video call, probably with Hill or Fury.

Steve seemingly hadn’t heard her when she approached the office, because he flinched slightly when he turned in his chair to look at her. He had a crumpled tissue pressed to his nose, and Natasha immediately noted how his eyes looked a little glassy and his cheeks were tinted a deeper pink shade than usual. He smiled sincerely when he saw her, though, and held up five fingers to indicate that they’d finish up in a couple of minutes.

“Just letting you know I’m back,” she whispered, then eyed the couch in his office and cocked her head. Steve just nodded, and Natasha took her usual spot in the corner of the couch and slung her feet onto the coffee table.

She scrolled through her phone while distantly listening to Steve go over some reports, sniffling and clearing his throat every once in a while. However, all her attention turned to Steve when he at one point held up a finger, excused himself, and turned his laptop so he was out of shot.

Natasha watched as Steve’s eyes narrowed and wrinkled his nose before sharply turning his face into his shoulder. “h’mphhChhuh!” Steve tried to muffle back the sneeze, but when he didn’t seem to be done he lifted his arm to bury his face in the crook of his elbow. “huhUSHmphh! Huhh… uhhUSHhiew! snff—SNFF!” The second sneeze of the double was too strong to control, and Steve reached for the used tissue to sniffle into before turning back to his laptop and unmuting himself. “Sorry,” he said with a hoarse and congested voice, then went right back into discussing the reports as if nothing had happened.

Judging by how tired and sniffly Steve seemed, Natasha imagined this wasn’t the first time during the call that Steve had to turn away from the camera and turn off his mic to cough or sneeze in relative private. She didn’t say anything, though, just smiled to herself and continued going through her emails.

About 10 minutes later, Steve signed off the meeting with a stuffy sigh and closed his laptop. Pressing the heel of his hand to his eye, he tried to clear the haze and blurry vision and sunk into his chair with a defeated groan.

“You’re done for today,” Natasha said before Steve even had the chance to open his mouth.

“Yeah, I wish,” he huffed and pushed himself up from his chair, then slumped down next to Nat. “I have a conference call in thirty minutes.”

Natasha rolled her eyes and sighed, but she inched closer to Steve to run her fingers through the blonde locks. “I don’t think you’ll be able to stay awake during a conference call right now. You looked like you were about to pass out just then.”

Steve didn’t say anything, just rubbed a hand down over his face, attempting to wipe away the obvious exhaustion but to no avail. Somehow he managed to look even more tired, eyelids heavy as he turned his face towards Nat, who retracted her hand from Steve’s hair and went on to cup his cheek in her palm.

“You have a fever,” she stated, frowning, and as if on cue, Steve gave a full-body shudder. “Do you feel cold?” Nat asked, then pulled out a blanket from the basket that stood next to the couch when Steve nodded reluctantly. He didn’t object to snuggle under the warm throw, pulling it closely around his shoulders when Natasha draped it over him.

“I think I forgot to turn on the heating in here,” he mumbled and reached up to push nose against a bent index finger. He sniffled a little, too, before rubbing at his nose a bit more intently. Then his breath caught and he went still for a few seconds, waiting for the itch to crest. “uhhCHshoo!  h’uhh! ehhTSCH’oo!” The sneezes were followed up by a couple of ticklish coughs, then launched into another strong double, “hptChssh! huhTschoo! huhh? Ugh… snffSnff. ‘Scuse mbe.”

He caught the sneezes neatly in his elbow, Natasha petting him between his shoulder blades through his cable knit sweater as his body trembled with the intensity of the fit. When he emerged back up, he had this bleary look on his face, his eyes watering so bad and Nat had to brush away a stray tear from his cheek.

“Bless you,” she murmured softly and reached around to tug the blanket as closely around Steve as it possibly could. “No more work.”

“Nat…” Steve cut himself off as soon as he saw Natasha’s stern glare. He knew better than to argue with her. “Okay, fide... ndo mbore work.”

“The only thing you’re going to do for the rest of today is be a good soldier and do as you’re told, you understand? That means you’ll actually take the medicine I’m going to grab for you and drink the tea I make,” she clarified, smirking a little when Steve’s face scrunched up.

“I doad thi’gg thad’s, umb, snff! necessary,” he said, ducking his head shyly.

“Leave it for me to decide what’s necessary, okay? You can’t be comfortable with that fever, though, so do you want Tylenol or Advil?”

“Umb… neither? Advil,” he decided when Nat shot him a look.

“Advil it is… Advil and lemon tea with honey,” Nat murmured against Steve’s shoulder before placing a kiss on there and resting her head against him. Steve relaxed into the touch as well, then shivered violently and tried to suppress the small whimper that ended up gliding over his lips anyway. “Are you still cold?”

Steve shrugged unconvincingly. “I’mb okay…” To prove himself wrong, another shiver ran down his spine, and Natasha couldn’t help but snort fondly and pull him into a hug, shifting them into a lying position as she adjusted the blanket to cover both of them.