No, no matter how often you ask her, Maria Hill would never admit on being big on cuddling. And if you ever said otherwise, she would most likely happily shoot you, without as much of a twitch in her eyes.
Neither would Natasha Romanoff ever admit she likes the monkey-like grip Maria has on her whenever they find a spare moment to just fall back onto the sofa in their apartment and shut the rest of world, in favor of enjoying this little privilege, listening to the other's steady heartbeat and just be Maria and Natasha.
They would lie there for hours, indulging in being close to each other. Nothing but the feeling of peace, aside from their breathing and maybe the occasional mumbled words of affection.
Rumors, that's all there is. Never has anyone lived to tell and confirm them. Until one day...
Natasha was yet again busy doing whatever it was at Stark's floor of the tower, a place Maria usually stays away from, also because she's way too busy with whatever it is some obviously incapable co-worker bothers her with. And that was what just had happened the fifth time today in a matter of hours and it was not even 11am. She groans in frustration, has ultimately enough when there is another knock on her door.
"Enough!" she says more to herself, pushes herself off the chair and leaves. There is only so much even Maria can take.
Her destination: the only person who she knows will calm her boiling anger down. Even if that means going where she wants rather not to, but she can't bother caring about that now. She needs to see Natasha.
The sound of the elevator coming to a stop and the 'ding' before the door swishes open immediately got Natasha's attention.
"Maria? What are you doing here?" she wonders, not in complaint though, as the smile on her lips confirms.
"Uh, don't ask. Had to get away from that mess for a moment," she waves her hand around. And Natasha finds is helplessly endearing.
Not five minutes later Maria was where she wanted to be: in Natasha's arms, who coaxed her dispite a slight protest on Maria's side to just lie down on the couch and let Natasha take care of her, in terms of just holding her. A simple, but always effective move to put each other at easy. And isn't that what's home supposed to do and be like?
Just, falling asleep like this was certainly not the plan. Neither was it for Tony to come sauntering along and of course being the one spotting them like this.
Not thinking twice he pulls out his phone and captures this moment, he even had time to make a short video.
And really, he swears, nothing of this was meant for anybody's yes, except his own of course (ok, not even for his). It didn't help that the photos were pulled not an hour after they went on, the damage was done. That it was now made perfectly clear that Maria and Natasha were a couple wasn't the problem, they never actually hid that, no, it was solely that the infamous Black Widow and the Ice Queen and former Deputy Diretor of S.H.I.E.L.D. were now known to be cuddle bunnies.
It was needless to say both ladies were not amused, not by any means.
Much to Tony's surprise (who already saw himself 6 feet under) neither of the two had approached him. He shrugged to himself and went with it. Maybe the two women just decided to ignore it.
His world was ok until the day a sudden high-pitched scream from Pepper turning into neverending laughter made his ears ring. He didn't even know she was capable of laughing that much because of one single thing. Whatever it was that threw her into the biggest fit of laughter Tony has had ever heard comming from her mouth, it must be something good.
"What's so funny, hmmmm?" he raises an eyebrow at her red face.
"Uhmmm," she clears her throat,"No-nothing...just...OMG Tony," she starts laughing all over again; one hand flailing at the computer screen the other gesturing for Tony to come around see for himself.
Tony rolled his eyes, because yes, couldn't Pepper just tell him?
"WHATTHEFUCK?" Now who is screaming? Ok, granted, he didn't throw himself into laughter until he was crying, no, he was more like the perfect image a deer caught in the headlights, rendered speechless.
It might have been seconds or minutes he spend staring at the picture. A picture of him lying on the couch, the thick blanket barely hiding the bright pink onesie he's wearing- a onesie he can't even remember he possessed. He figured, it must've been the night they all got shitfaced a couple days ago. He can't remember a single thing from that night, utter and complete blackout.
Voices from outside the office catch his attention. Just in time he raised his head, because the voices sound awfully familiar, he sees Natasha and Maria high-fiving each other.
"Payback's a bitch!"