Somebody Call For A Rescue?
Natasha had been having a bad day. Her car decided to break down on her, which meant that she had to walk all over campus for her classes and was almost late for a couple of them. It was a pretty hot day too, so that certainly didn't help things.
'Well, things can't get any worse from here,' she thought to herself.
She shouldn't have even entertained such a dangerous thought. The morning after, she woke up in her apartment, coughing violently. The pollen count had been high the day before and she'd been walking around in it for quite a while, going to and from classes.
Natasha took an couple of echinacea pills and drank some herbal lemon tea. What she really needed was a nice, big bowl of hot soup. Minestrone or beef stew would work wonders for her throat and help kick the mucus out of her system. Unfortunately, today was the day that Natasha was supposed to go grocery shopping, but given how bad her cold was, she figured it'd be best to remain indoors.
Staying inside when one had a cold was not fun. Natasha decided against calling any of her friends to go to the store for her though, because she didn't want to be a bother. Anyway, it was Mother's Day, so most of her friends were back home, spending the weekend with their families. Natasha was one of the students who didn't have a home to go to.
Her parents died in a car accident when she was nine so her grandmother took custody of her, raising her until she passed away. Natasha had just graduated a couple of days after when her grandmother, бабушка (babushka), as she called her, died. Even though Natasha loved the house she and her grandmother had lived in and she wouldn't have had any problem living in it on her own - the mortgage was paid off years ago, so the only thing to be paid for would be the water and electricity bill - it was just too lonely there by herself. So, after careful consideration, she decided to sell the house.
The house was bought in a few weeks after being listed, which Natasha was extremely grateful for. She took a few trinkets and furniture with her from the house, but she left most of it behind for the family who bought the house. As much as Natasha adored her grandmother's taste in design, she had her own apartment to decorate and it wasn't a large apartment either.
The proceeds from the sale were very generous and Natasha put half of it in the trust fund her grandmother had started for her. The money was growing at a wonderful rate, and Natasha was certain that, after she graduated, she could purchase a small house with the money.
The only problem with living in a house was that, whether it was small or not, it would still be pretty solitary. Perhaps she could interest one of her female friends to be her roommate. Goodness knows Pepper, Wanda and/or Darcy could use a change of scenery. Pepper had been living with her fiancée, Tony, until she caught him cheating, so she left and moved in with Wanda, but Wanda was having problems with her unbearably lascivious landlord. Then there was Darcy, whose parents kicked her out because she got a D in geometry. Hell, they all could be roommates together. Life would never be dull with such different and vibrant feminine personalities living under one roof, that was for sure.
Coughing loudly and blowing her nose, Natasha switched the channels on her tv again, trying to find something worth watching. "Geez, there is a lot of garbage on television these days," she murmured to herself and she continued to flip through stations. Finally, after a few minutes of channel surfing, she found Beaches playing on Lifetime.
Always a sucker for a good tearjerker, she set the remote control down on the coffee table in front of her. Natasha pulled her colourful afghan around her shoulders tightly and snuggled up against the oversized pillow on her knees. The scene where Bette Midler's character was singing 'Oh Industry' had just come on.
"Oh, good. One of my favorite parts of the movie." Natasha coughed and hacked for a few minutes as she watched the rest of the film. Every once in a while she would sneeze and have to blow her nose too, which really got on her nerves because it gave her a hard time trying to hear what the characters were saying.
After the movie ended, Natasha stood up to make herself another cup of lemon tea, but her body was, yet again, immediately wracked with coughing. She sat back down and grabbed her chest, hitting it with a flat palm in an effort to stop. Her chest was beginning to get sore from the coughing.
Several minutes passed before the coughing subsided and when it did, Natasha took a long swig of her water until her cup was empty. "Okay, that's it. I'm going to the store. I need hot soup pronto. I guess I'll just cover up with gloves and a scarf..."
As she stood, a loud crashing sound came from the front door of her apartment, which made Natasha jump in surprise. Was someone trying to break in? She tossed the afghan from around her shoulders and reached under the table, pulling out a baseball bat. Whoever the jerk was, he would get the surprise of his life.
As she waited for the thief, rapist, whatever this guy was break in to her apartment she heard him shout from behind her front door. "Don't worry, ma'am! I'm coming!" She gasped at this. He really had some nerve, announcing that he was going to break in!
Natasha stood around the corner of her front door as the crashing sound finally subsided and was followed by a sickening crunch sound, then a lold thud. The creep had broken in. Natasha gripped the baseball bat and waited for him to run past her so she could get a good hit in.
Whoever he was, he ran really fast. He passed Natasha before she could get a swing in and she coughed. The man whirled at the sound and he gasped. "Oh, my God! Are you okay?! Did you need to go to the emergency room or anything?!"
"What the hell are you talking about...? Don't come any closer, you creep! Unless you want your brains bashed in." For some reason, he looked familiar to Natasha, but she shook off that feeling and kept her glaring eyes on him in between coughs.
He kept his distance and held his hands up in a conciliatory gesture. "Look...um, I must be mistaken then. This is really embarrassing. Ah, I'm sorry for breaking into your apartment, but I thought you were...well, dying.."
Wait, what? Natasha scrunched her eyebrows and she scoffed. "I beg your pardon?"
"I thought you were dying because of all the coughing I heard. These walls are pretty thin, you know. I'm your new neighbor...Steve Rogers? I moved in last week. You held the door open for me in the elevator once." Steve's cheeks turned the slightest shade of pink after he said that. Not that Natasha blamed him. Why would he remember her holding the elevator open for him...? That was a pretty odd thing to say.
She did remember him, though. Steve had been moving his furniture into the apartment a few levels up from her own and she held the elevator for him as he carried a large box in his arms. He attempted to make small talk with Natasha, but her mind was on the research paper she had to do and she didn't really take notice of him.
That moment made her feel quite embarrassed as she never treated people with such flippancy before. Afterwards, she had wanted to bring him lasagna or one of a million different varieties of casserole and welcome him to the apartments, but she'd been swamped with school and work, so the time got away from her and she ended up forgetting.
At least Steve had knocked down her door with noble intentions. That was pretty sweet, come to think of it. Natasha lowered the bat, setting it down on the kitchen countertop. She crossed her arms and stifled the coughing fit that threatened to strike before replying hoarsely, "Ohh. Right. Well, I hope you're planning on paying for the perfectly nice door that you broke down...Rogers." For some reason, she felt a little more comfortable and in control calling him by his last name.
That pink hue on his cheeks turned scarlet. Boy, could he blush on demand. Steve looked at the door and hurried over to it, picking it up and leaning it against the wall. "Don't worry, I will. I promise. I'm really very sorry about all of this." He licked his lips and looked to be in thought. Natasha watched him, waiting for him to speak.
As she waited, she gave him a lengthy once over. Good God, he was a stud. Not lanky by any means. He had short blonde hair, gorgeous blue eyes, full lips that were made for kissing and a whole lot of other good things going for him. Natasha could tell that, from his physique, he worked out. Probably three or four times a week at the gym. Then she shook her head at the straying thought.
Get it together, girl.
Steve smiled softly at her and he put his hands in his pockets. "Listen...I know that I destroyed your front door and barged into your house without an invite, but...it looks to me as if you have a cold."
The words "How did you know that?" were ready to leave Natasha's mouth, but then she remembered the big mug that she drank her lemon tea in, the scattered tissues, the plate of vegetables she'd eaten. All of these things were left on the coffee table and were clear signs that she was fighting off a cold. Not to mention that she was wearing her rumpled polka dot pajamas.
A little embarrassed of being seen in such a state by a handsome guy that she didn't know, Natasha responded, "Yeah? You won't catch it if you keep your distance from me." The biting sarcasm that laced Natasha's voice surprised her and she felt immediate shame about it. The look on Steve's face made her feel even worse. Her babushka would have scolded her for such rudeness.
Natasha wrung her hands and laughed awkwardly. "I-I'm sorry. I don't mean to be so nasty. I just...I'm not in a good mood. My chest is in pain from all of this coughing I've been doing and then you broke down my door. Unintentionally, of course, and it was still a bit of a nuisance, but I'm not one to hold a grudge. You're forgiven." She made sure to give him a beaming smile that would perk him up.
And it did. He gave her a dazzling white smile in return and took his hands out of his pockets. He motioned to the door. "I can fix it today. I have the right tools for it. I'd just need to go to Home Depot or Lowe's and get another door."
"Yeah, and these doors are all the same bland copy, so you should have no trouble there."
"Right...but before I do that, I'd like to make you some soup."
"Soup?" Natasha looked at Steve, a furrow in her brow.
"Yeah. I'm just getting over a cold myself and my mother's homemade soup recipe is helping me get better faster."
Her stomach gurgled and they both laughed at the sound. "Sounds just like what the doctor ordered," she replied. "Thank you. I'd really appreciate that, if you're sure you don't mind."
Steve waved his hand in the air. "Trust me. It's no big deal. My mother used to help out destitute young women all the time...er, but you aren't destitute." There was that cute blush again.
"Well, maybe not personally, but you could say that my stomach fits into that category."
They both laughed again and Steve gave her a look that Natasha couldn't identify. She felt herself shivering in spite of the warm air conditioning in her apartment.
Steve moved towards the doorway of her apartment. "I'll be back in a few minutes. I still have a lot of soup in my fridge. I'll heat up a pot and bring it over in ten, fifteen minutes. Is that okay?"
Natasha held her arms out. "I'm not going anywhere."
Steve had one foot out in the hall when he stopped, backed up and gave her a questioning gaze. Natasha cocked her head to the side. "Is something wrong?"
"Your name. I told you mine, but you didn't give me yours. I can't go around calling you 'neighbor', now, can I?"
"Oh. Yeah. I'm Natasha. Natasha Romanov."
The man stepped forward and shook Natasha's hand gently, holding it a mite too long - not that it bothered her any - before letting go. "Natasha...that's a beautiful name."
Steve gave her one more final look before smiling and disappearing into the hallway.
As she made her way back into the kitchen, Natasha noticed that her coughing fits had finally stopped. She thought about the startlingly blue eyes that Steve had and she felt a little bit of glee. Who knew she had such a handsome neighbor, with a nice smile? Maybe Natasha was reading too much into it, but Steve definitely seemed to be attracted to her. Staying indoors wasn't so bad after all.