An Insomniac and a Movie
Steve Rogers
Steve ran a hand through his dusty hair after finishing up his work on Natasha’s dry wall for the penthouse, aka her private room and bar. Natasha was sitting on the ladder, messing with several different kinds of wires, stripping them of the brightly colored protective rubber and carefully weaving them together to create longer wires; or at least that’s what he’d been told she was doing. he wasn’t exactly an expert on electronics. Of course, even after two nights of sleeplessness, very messy hair that was on the edge of disgusting, and the equivalent of pajamas on, Natasha still managed to look good to him. She always looked good to him.
However, her continuous lack of sleep concerned him.
She was smart, however that didn’t mean she wasn’t without her flaws. When her nightmares were too much, Natasha would stay away for days on end. Between being captured and forced to create the Iron Woman suit, Ivan, and what’d happened in New York a year ago, the doctors told him that she had severe PTSD that caused nightmares and occasional flashes of old memories and severe panic attacks that scared him.
Natasha refused the medicine and the evaluation from her therapist, disagreeing all together like the stubborn girl she is, which made Steve’s job of helping her recover all the more difficult.
However difficult Natasha was being, it didn’t make Steve love her any less. if anything it was endearing. On the other hand… the insomnia made her harder to deal with at times, and if he even mentioned sleep, she’d flip on him about how she was fine and didn’t need it, starting to go on about her studies of the human body and if humans actually did need sleep. So instead, he’d mention about watching a movie and they’d go into their normal routine again. “Hey doll, how about we call it a day and get some popcorn and a movie to watch?”, he asked, causing laughter to come from Natasha.
“Doll?”, she asked, stripping two wires and twisted them together and he shrugged. “You need to come up with better nicknames than that, preferably something without the fifties lingo.”, she told him, smiling a bit. “However, yes. A movie and popcorn does sound nice. Just let me finish this and I’ll be ready to call it quits for now.”
“So I’ll go make the popcorn if you’d like to choose the movie.”, he told her, putting the tools up for the moment. The tower could wait a few hours while they watched a movie.
Natasha Stark
It’d been two months since the thing with Steve had happened. Aka Natasha got drunk as hell and had been talking about that fine ass of his. Man, was that ass fine. However, he frustrated her in the one department that she wasn’t used to being frustrated in. That would be the sexual one.
Despite the fact that they could basically dry hump one another, Natasha couldn’t seem to get past pulling his shirt off. He always pulled away and told her that he didn’t feel comfortable, which she never pushed. After all, when it happened, it would. She never pushed him past a comfortable point.
However, there were perks to dating Captain America, such as getting to watch both guys and girls get jealous as Natasha kissed him goodbye when he had to go on missions or when she took him into work. It was great to watch them go from fawning over him to glaring at her, which she only smiled and waved to Steve’s confusion. That was a secret that she’d enjoy for a long time.
“I have the popcorn if you have the movie.”, Steve called, causing her to jump slightly. “Uhm...not yet. I should get on that. How does Forest Gump sound?” she offered, catching a glimpse of the disk.
“I watched that with Bruce.”
“Then...Annie? It’s a movie about an orphan who gets adopted by a wealthy business man.”, Natasha suggested instead, not noticing the similarity.
“Sounds familiar.” he said with a smile, shrugging.
Natasha became unmoving at that comment, frowning as her shoulders tensed and drew back into a somewhat defensive stance.. “I was a convenience to Harold, Steve. My mom wanted a child, my dad needed an heir, and I fit the bill.”
Steve was surprised at the snideness over her parents, having known Harold a while back. “I’m sure it wasn’t like that-” he felt guilty for bringing up the subject and not keeping his mouth shut.
“Harold was obliging my mother’s want for a daughter. They couldn’t have kids and they both got something out of it. When she died, I was sent off to boarding school until I was eighteen, then he died and I took over Stark Industries. He didn’t do anything unless it benefited him, Steve. My mom wanted me and he gave her what he wanted. End of story.” her tone was sharp, cutting through the thick tension that had blanketed the room all of a sudden.
“I-I’m sorry.”, he said quietly, not realizing how Harold was at home.
Whoops, mood ruined.
“You..you didn’t know. You knew him back before he’d met my mom. After she died, he changed. His ‘charming qualities’ became his downfall. He changed and built a wall around himself so that no one could get in. It’s not your fault he did it. You didn’t know.”, she sighed, letting the tension leave her body, feeling guilty about the way she had reacted. He was just trying to tease her a little and she had turned it into a fiasco.
He nodded, but Natasha knew that he was offput by this new information. So she picked another movie, putting it in and sat down next to him. He looked skeptical, but she’d deal with it later. They both needed to relax and the work both had them spread thin. A movie and a cuddle session was exactly what they needed.