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Natasha originally started out her find-Cap-a-date venture to general disapproval from one Clint Barton.
"It's none of our business," Clint had insisted over hot wings and beer one night. "Let the man breathe a little."
"He's been breathing for a couple of months now." Natasha had countered, wing in hand. "He needs to get out more."
"Oh?" Clint said loftily. "Did he tell you that himself?"
Begrudgingly, Natasha said, "No."
"Well then." Clint said it like that was the end of the matter, and they had been distracted by the TV.
Except it hadn't been the end of the matter, and soon Natasha found herself bringing it up with Steve. At first, tentatively (or, well, as tentatively as the Black Widow could get) and a little gently - given that Steve seemed to be taking over Clint's almost exclusive spot in Strike Team Delta while Clint was deep undercover in Dubai, Natasha didn't want to scare Steve or put him off, even. She could be professional as all hell (see, on her resume: Tony Stark) but Steve had an uncanny, and sometimes unsettling ability of being extremely easy to read.
Steve was the one who'd set up her opening, actually. He'd approached her in the meeting room, where they were waiting for Hill to brief them on their newest assignment.
"I hope you don't think I'm trying to steal Clint's place on the team," Steve had said by way of greeting. This was going to be their third mission together.
"Oh, it's not me you need to convince. Clint has an arrow in waiting, just for you." Natasha returned his smile.
Steve let out a laugh. "Well, I'll be sure to watch my back. I'm sure this is just temporary anyway, just till he gets back."
Natasha had read between the lines and understood that Steve was genuinely concerned about their status as partners.
"I'm fine if you are, Cap," she assured him. Then to lighten the situation, she'd said, "You seem to be rooting for a temporary position. You got a lady to be focusing on, or something?"
Steve had blinked and opened his mouth at first, but at the end of her question he relaxed and eyed her dryly. "Yeah, got a whole line of them waiting outside my door."
"I'm sure that can be arranged." Natasha smiled at him maybe a little wickedly. "There's an abundance of women who'd be lining up if you wanted to."
Steve was about to deadpan something at her, she just knew it by the way he flattened his gaze, but right then Maria Hill swept in with a file and two other agents behind her. They settled around the table, Natasha sliding in beside Steve, who exchanged nods and hellos with the other agents. Midway through Hill's briefing, Natasha leaned into Steve's space.
"I can make it happen, Steve," she murmured, keeping her eyes on Hill. "Just say the word."
"How about 'never', Romanov?" Steve whispered back, but he was smiling. Natasha saw.
And so it began.
Steve and Natasha soon were synonymous with 'team' throughout SHIELD, almost like the way she and Clint were but not quite, lacking the years of experience and teamwork together. Nevertheless, as a brand new partnership they worked seamlessly well together, like a well-oiled machine that's just been put together.
Natasha found herself expanding more and more into her mental list of female agents to casually toss out to Steve. Steve seemed to think that this was an absent-minded little play of Natasha's, given the random patterns of her 'attacks', as he liked to call it. The truth was that Natasha always planned ahead on exactly when to spring a name on to Steve - she wanted to catch him off guard, and also it was just good fun for her.
"Mandy," Natasha said to Steve one time. "From IT."
Steve turned around just to very clearly roll his eyes at her. Shrugging, Natasha returned to the task at hand - hacking into and downloading, onto a hard drive, the information on servers of the building they had broken into, while Steve finished tying up the men he'd just taken out.
"Mandy's not my type." Steve said, dusting his hands off and coming towards her.
"Everyone likes blondes." Natasha muttered, eyes on the screen.
"Yeah, well." Steve pressed a finger to his comm and spoke briefly. "We're finished here, send in the clean up team. Better luck next time," he added to Natasha with a wink.
"I thought we decided you weren't going to play cupid for Cap," Clint said, once he came back from Dubai. He'd headed straight to the break room after debriefing with Hill, and found Steve and Natasha in a corner. Hugs and greetings past, fifteen minutes in and Natasha had already dropped two names.
Steve raised his hands and let them flop back to his lap. "Thank you, Clint."
"Oh, he likes it." Natasha dismissed it, folding her hands around her coffee. "So how was the mission?"
Clint shrugged and winced immediately after. "Fractured collarbone, my ankle's healing from a sprain, and uh, I think I haven't slept in 72 hours?" He looked up. Natasha and Steve had raised eyebrows looking at him. Clint grinned. "But I got em. Brought them in just now."
"How many?" Steve asked.
"Eleven in a gang," Clint said like it wasn't a big deal. "Busted my ankle swinging into the 20th floor from the 37th. Underworld gangsters, I tell you." Clint shook his head disapprovingly.
"Get your ass to the medical wing, please." Natasha requested.
Clint shrugged again with his good shoulder. "I'll pass, its nothing a good sleep won't heal."
Natasha turned to appeal to Steve, who was already giving Clint his should-be-patented Captain America look of disapproval, with his lips pursed, eyes slightly narrowed and chin lifted heroically.
"Or I'll just stop by medical when I can." Clint muttered under Natasha's added glare, "Jeez."
"Don't make me tell Hill," Natasha said as passive-aggressively as she could.
"Or I'll just go right now." Clint rolled his eyes and stood up. "Who put the both of you together?"
"So Clint's back," Steve said one night, as they were finishing paperwork together. This was the part of her job that she actually disliked - Paperwork that irritated Natasha to no end. She had always tried to wane it off on Clint whenever she could, but Steve had proclaimed his judgment of the Black Widow and she'd returned to it, gnashing her teeth.
"I noticed," Natasha deadpanned.
"Ha ha." Steve's pen rustled over the paper. "I'm gonna miss all of your little snarks."
That didn't sound right to her. "Why, where are you going?"
"Nowhere?" Steve sounded confused. "Clint's back."
Natasha looked over at him. "What are you talking about?"
"You're Strike Team Delta," Steve said, shrugging a little.
"Oh," Natasha said, cluing in quickly. Clint hadn't told him. "Clint's been put on two weeks' rest. And then he's back in Dubai." If Clint hadn't chosen to tell Steve he'd be spending those two weeks on the farm with Laura, it wasn't Natasha place to do so.
"Again?"
"Yeah, his cover was so good that Fury wants him in the underworld gang again. Something about bigger fish." Natasha bent over her paper.
Steve's pen stopped rustling. "So... we're still partners?"
Natasha nodded. "Guess I'm still stuck with you, Cap."
"I think its more I'm stuck with you, Romanov," Steve said dryly.
Just to annoy him, Natasha said, "What do you think about Stella from Human Resources?"
Steve sighed, but he was still smiling.
"How's the matchmaking venture going?" Clint asked her on the phone.
"The usual. He's getting more and more creative with his rejections, though." Natasha thought about it. "He said no to Anais, can you believe it?"
"Tattoos, piercings, the Accounting Indian girl? Wow, really?" Clint sounded disbelieving.
"I know," Natasha said. "I thought he'd agree for sure, but he just rolled his eyes at me."
"Huh," Clint said.
"What?" Natasha asked, because she knew Clint and she knew his huhs. This was a different, speculative huh.
"Nothing," Clint said.
"Clint."
"You just sounded pleased that he rejected her." Clint said lightly.
What the hell are you talking about? was on the tip of her tongue, but something made her pause, and she thought back to that feeling.
"Huh," Natasha said.
"Yep." Clint hummed for a while. "So do I need to give Cap the talk? I know where you live, I'll stick an arrow in your ass type thing?"
"No," Natasha said forcefully. "You'll do no such thing. That was a blip."
There was a short pause on Clint's end. "It's okay, Nat. You know that, right? You're both in the same line - this could be different."
Natasha thought about that too, and decided to file it away for the future. "That's another headache I don't want to deal with now," she said. "Leave it."
"Alright, but if anything does happen over time, I'm reserving taunting rights."
"You do that," Natasha snorted. "Send my hugs to Laura and the kids. And Clint?"
"Yeah, Nat."
"Travel safe."
"You're quiet," Steve said, "I'm starting to worry."
Natasha glanced at him quizzically as he dropped into the co-pilot's seat. "We've been talking since we lifted off of SHIELD."
"I mean on the dating front," Steve clarified. "No suggestions, casual innuendos, offers of phone numbers, and it's been... an hour?" He made a mock-impressed face. "This is a new achievement for you, I'm proud."
Natasha shook her head, although she was smiling. "Well, I'd decided to give you a break, but if you like it..."
"Nope! No, no thank you." Steve raised his hands.
Natasha let just enough silence linger between them before she attacked - let them think they're comfortable, Natasha always maintains. "But seriously, if you're still into it I know Hannah from IT is -"
"Natasha," Steve laughed while saying her name. "I'll ask someone out when I'm ready."
She quirked a brow. "Oh, this is juicy. Who's the girl?" Steve shook his head, smiling. Natasha pressed him for more. "Come on Steve, you can't do this to me. I have a vested interest in this matter."
"Do you now?" Steve said curiously.
"Well, I -" Natasha looked over the radar on the console to buy thinking time. "I have to keep Clint updated on SHIELD gossip."
Steve didn't answer, and when Natasha glanced over at him, he was just looking at her and smiling.
"In time, Nat," Steve said, still smiling.
"Melinda? Gabrielle?" Natasha said as a final test, while on the treadmill. "Uh, Maria?"
Steve paused and gave her an incredulous look. "As in, Hill?"
"I'm running out of options," Natasha said exasperatedly.
Steve just chuckled. His stare lingered on her for a second, then he returned to the punching bag in front of him.
Natasha wasn't stupid, and she can definitely read between the lines, but she was rather enjoying their little game of suspense. She knew that it probably wasn't fun for the same reasons for Steve, but hey, she's getting a thrill out of it, so she let Steve continue his tricks and simply waited. She'd slowly started to wane off the attacks and watched with mild fascination as Steve stumbled trying to bring up the topic with her. Their time together produced chemistry so palpable even Natasha could see it, like this one time a particularly explosive assignment landed her under Steve's trusty shield for coverage.
She'd watched him struggle to keep his eyes on hers, his blue gaze dropping down to her lips every now and then as they whispered about their next plan of attack. So, soon. She would wait.
One day, Steve wandered off to the living room after lunch. They'd spent the entire time teasing and trying to one-up each other's stories (which, really, was Steve and Natasha's brand of flirting) much to their friend's fascination.
"You're both idiots," Sam Wilson said, shaking his head. He'd read between the lines, too.
"I'd like to take you out to dinner." Steve said one day.
"Took you long enough," Natasha muttered, "Duck." She shot at the man aiming his gun behind Steve's back.
Steve performed an impressive backflip and flung his shield expertly enough to slam into the shoulder of the other guy wielding a knife at Natasha. It ricocheted off the wall and back into Steve's waiting hands, although he barely paused a second as he kicked up a table to block the enemy's gunfire.
"I know," he said, out of breath. "I'm sorry. I thought I wasn't ready."
Natasha had her thighs wrapped around one guy's neck. "And you are, now?" She flipped over and used his body to block the shots being fired at her.
"I don't know." Steve found himself between two men, but seemed largely unbothered as he blocked punches and threw his fist out in return. "But I'm done waiting." He slammed his fist down on one man's neck before looking up and flinging his shield off the nearest wall. "Romanov!" He said sharply.
Natasha gratefully snatched the ricocheting wall and used it to block even more gunfire. She flipped with it covering her body, landing behind the shooter and thrusting a fist to his neck. She threw the shield back to Steve, as hard as she could, and caught the gun dropping from the man's lax hands.
Well. It was over now.
She fired with rapid precision. Natasha caught two men sneaking up behind Steve and she rolled herself over the floor, sitting up on both knees and shooting them right in their legs.
"That's how you wanna play this?" She stood, panting a little.
Steve finished off the man he was fighting and turned to her. He was out of breath as well. Natasha wiped a stream of blood from her forehead. He had a cut on his chin. Steve crossed over the bodies on the floor, coming to her.
"I don't want to play." Steve wrapped a hand around her waist, bent his head, and kissed her.
Natasha pulled back after a while, and they were both panting. She raised her hand and shot at a man with a knife behind Steve.
"Okay then," she said.