OPEN POST / HELP ME VOICE TEST

[multitasking]

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O P T I O N A L - M E M E - L I N K S

hurt/comfort ←
dark au ←
amnesiac shipping ←

Comments

[fossils]

idefk bullshits this at midnight let me know if it's meaningless drivel

[multitasking]

[ Honestly, she wishes she could remember how this had all started. Probably a snide remark on her part, if she's being realistic, something that brushed all those morals up the wrong way and reminded Steve how she's on the wrong side of the grey scale.

Or maybe it wasn't even that, maybe she's reading the situation all wrong - it doesn't happen often, but it does happen - and maybe this all rests squarely on her shoulders. Maybe finally acquiring something of a friendship beyond professional courtesy means accepting that disagreements will happen sometimes, but it's been a long time since Natasha has referred to anyone as a friend. You can't really blame her for being rusty. ]

Will you just listen. [ Slamming her fist against the solid metal surface she'd previously been leaning against had been unwise, uncharacteristically spontaneous, and the outburst had taken her by as much surprise as it had Steve. Her knuckles are starting to bruise already, but better a bruised fist than a bruised jaw.

(Supersoldiers are hard to bruise, sure, but that doesn't mean she couldn't have tried). ]

I'm never going to be a hero. You're Captain America, I'm a spy. You're a public figurehead, I'm a well-kept secret. I can't change to fit into your moral standards. [ And at last some of the tension drops from her shoulders as she shrugs: ] I won't.

[ She hasn't argued with someone like this in a long time, either, and the sensation is entirely unpleasant. It's not often she deals with new experiences any more, and this is one she'd not like to repeat. It's much easier when everyone is kept at arms length, maybe then she wouldn't care so much about where Steve views her moral standpoints any more.

...Then again, she hadn't cared aboard the ship either, and look how that had turned out. ]

wot is drivel i see none

[fossils]

[ Public figurehead. Even after New York he got the kid gloves treatment from most of the agency. Most. All the friendly banter, teasing, that's been their language since SHIELD first decided to pair the two for (super)special ops - and if those are the gloves she chooses to handle him with, well, Steve doesn't mind it so much.

(grey scales aside, it was always the day he might've had to accept that all along she'd only been another painted room that bothered him most)

The sound of her fist hitting metal gets a wince out of him. There's nothing friendly about this particular conversation but it's the body language, the slammed fist, the sort of slip that even Steve can see, that causes a shift. He doesn't have her ability to read people, not by half. She sees what's there, assesses and calculates and adapts quicker than any physical reflex. But for him? Right now he's stuck on what might be, how he wants her to see it too.

It's certainly in him to charge an opening, only with her he hesitates. Knows she'll read that too, in the wince and the lack of a quick retort. It takes a second caught in indecision before the frustration on his face slips away in an exhaled breath. ]

Not asking you to change, Natasha. We all watched you fly an alien scooter to the top of a skyscraper and save New York City from being blown off the map. Think that already makes you a hero. [ Think it's already in you to be more. It's his tone that says the rest of it: disappointment. That when she says can't he thinks she means won't.

His gaze, locked on her this entire time, now strays to her battered hand. ] Better get ice on that.

[ And he's already ducking over to the fridge. ]

gently overloads inbox back yr welcome

[multitasking]

[ Of course he's going to find ice already, and it's all Natasha can do not to roll her eyes. Instead she keeps her eyes fixed on his movements, tries to look through him rather than at him, and when she's sure that Steve's back is turned she flexes the hand still pressed firmly against the bench. He's right, of course. It's already bruising, and it's such a careless mistake that it takes another small shift of the muscles along her fingers, a small jab of pain for her to truly confirm it actually happened.

She doesn't make mistakes. Black Widow doesn't make mistakes, and she certainly doesn't hit things when she's angry. ]

New York was...[ different, maybe, or complicated - she likes that one. Complicated can mean a lot of things, and New York does to. She helped save a lot of lives that day - but how much of that had been self-preservation? How much of that had been cold-blooded revenge for dancing inside of Barton's head and scrambling the wires until he looked at her the same way she'd first looked at him? How much of it was really being a hero, and how much of it was the usual muddy conclusions that she'd been wading through her whole life?

None of that makes it out of her mouth though. Her shoulders hunch just slightly, muscles taut in her back as she seriously considers walking out, but she needs that ice, and she probably prefers Steve around to not.

(Probably, she thinks, as though 'probably' cuts it for the first person to be able to provoke an emotional reaction from her since Clint). ]..unusual circumstances.

[ All the information is there for the taking now, and she can't help but wonder if he's looked into it - looked into her. She wonders if he has poured over the files now in public domain the way she had when Fury first suggested she team up with Captain America.

He'd told her that friends usually ask each other that kind of information. She'd told him to stop being such a child. ]

Unrealistic expectations do more damage in the long run, Steve.

[ The words are barbed, but her expression is a careful mask and her eyes are trained on her darkened knuckles. She's not quite sure who she's trying to convince anymore. ]