Natasha needed to stop throwing parties.
At this point there was no way she was getting her security deposit back.
Nothing good ever went down at her place. Sam's? Fine. Wanda's? Fine. Tony's? debatable. (it depended on whether or not Tony brought out the coke)
Every time she threw a party, one of 3 things happened:
1. a hole gets put in her wall
2. someone throws up all over her floor
3. she walks in on someone having sex
And of course, tonight, her 21st birthday, Natasha Romanov is gifted a triple whammy. Happy birthday!
It was clearer than ever that the night would be a shitshow when it was only 10:47pm and Sam was already passed out her balcony.
"Sam!" Natasha bent down to lightly tap her friend's cheek. He was out cold, but she could hear his heavy breathing muffled from where his face was pressed into the ground.
"Sam, I'm gonna need you to wake up. This party was your fucking idea, and I'm not letting you get out of it so easy," Natasha murmured, continuing to lightly hit his face. Sam moaned in his sleep, causing her to recoil in disgust. She resorted to propping his body sideways against the wall, figuring that if he were to (god forbid) throw up in his sleep, he wouldn't choke on it. She stood up and took a deep inhale of the night air, before trudging back inside to face the chaos.
The party was in full swing, and Nat would be having fun if it wasn't her own goddamn apartment. Sam knew she hated having parties at her house, but still convinced her to throw one anyway. That sleeping bastard. Here she was, on her 21st birthday, more concerned about her potential property damage than actually having a good time.
Nat sucked in air and breathed it out slowly. She was going to have a good time if it killed her. She grabbed a jello shot off of the coffee table and sucked it down, then began weaving through the slew of people in the hopes of finding Bucky.
Bucky had a tendency to hide in the corner during things like this. He was definitely the most introverted of her friends, and even though he was at the very least acquaintances with everyone there, he would still stand awkwardly to the side unless approached, quietly nursing his jack and coke and his pack of Marlboro's.
Making her way through various friends and friends of friends, (who had somehow snagged an invite without her knowing?) Natasha spots Rhodey, who was standing over Tony as he poured drinks.
"This is my father's new amaretto liqueur. He invested in it as a gift to my mother. It's stronger than the poor man's amaretto; 40% alcohol instead of 26%, or whatever." Tony poured it into nice little glasses.
"Amaretto? Tony, who the hell gets wasted off of amaretto?" Rhodey shook his head as he sniffed the liqueur, evaluating it carefully.
"The thing is, you can't even taste the alcohol. It has so much sugar, it just tastes like marzipan." Tony sipped it, and then gestured for him to try it. The taste made his eyes go wide.
"Dude," Rhodey gasped. "This shit is dangerous." He gulped the rest down and started pouring all of them new glasses.
"Have either of you idiots seen Bucky?" Nat said, grabbing the bottle of the mystery liquid and attempting to read the fine print, just for Tony to snatch it away.
"No need to get curious. And no, I haven't seen him. But will you relax? It's your goddamn birthday and you're tramping around here like you're everyone's babysitter." Tony chided her as he poured her a drink, which she stared at for a while, before ultimately downing it (against her better judgement).
"Jesus christ, that's sweet." Natasha cringed at the taste. It really did taste like straight marzipan. It did have the slight alcoholic taste, but otherwise it could've been a fountain drink.
"Bucky will turn up eventually. Go dance or mingle or something and quit worrying about him. And then go find Wilson and send him over here."
"Sam is currently passed out on my balcony."
"Okay then ix-nay that last part. Now go on now. Shoo." He poured her another glass of his Frankenstein juice before shooing her out of the kitchen.
Once again, Nat was weaving through the crowd. She stared at Howard Stark's Special Amaretto and placed it down on a coffee table. She didn't trust that stuff for one second. Next to the coffee table, Nat's neighbor Sharon was sitting on the floor, bawling her eyes out.
"Sharon? Hey, what's wrong?" Nat awkwardly kneeled next to the drunk girl, who was absolutely hysterical on the floor.
"Everything is falling apart!" she gasped in between sobs.
"Tell me about it," Natasha muttered.
"No, no. Everything with Steve. He dumped me a month ago." She was even worse than she was when Nat first came up to her, with snot trailing down her face.
"Sharon, you guys were dating for like, 3 months. Not even. And he dumped you a month ago? Why are you so upset?"
"He dumped me because he's gay!" She sobbed into her shirt. Nat cocked an eyebrow at this. She didn't know much about Steve (other than that he was very appealing to the eyes) but she never anticipated that bit of information to be correct.
"Did-did he tell you that?"
"No!" she shouted, startling Nat. "I just know that's why he left me!" She started crying again, and Nat just gave her a soft pat on the shoulder before bailing. She felt bad leaving her alone to cry, but she didn't really want to debate Steve Rogers' sexuality with drunk women at her birthday party.
There was still no sign of Bucky, but her eyes landed on Wanda, who was dancing alone in the middle of the room. Her eyes widened with excitement upon seeing Nat, and Nat saw by the glass in her hand that Tony had gotten to her with the amaretto first.
"Natasha!! Happy birthday my love!" Nat could tell that Wanda was bombed, as her strengthened Soviet accent and wobbly knees gave her away every time.
"You seem to be having fun," Nat teased as she steadied her friend.
"Dance with me!" Wanda started to float around Nat with dance moves resembling that of a toddler at a wedding reception. Sober Wanda was an amazing dancer. She and Nat had met through ballet classes in high school, and she was even minoring in dance in college. Drunk Wanda, however, was a whole different animal.
Dancing with Wanda truly let Nat's brain relax and she finally started to enjoy her party. She grabbed another jello shot and sucked it down right when she heard chanting from her kitchen.
She grabbed Wanda's wrist and dragged her through the crowd into the kitchen, where Clint was doing a keg stand, surrounded by a slew of drunk idiots cheering him on. Clint was deaf, so the cheering was more for his drunk audience than it was for him. Nat stared at him for a second before running around to Scott, who was enthusiastically spotting his legs.
"What the fuck Scott?" Nat gestured up to Clint (who was still chugging) and he turned to face her.
"This wasn't my idea," he put up his hands in surrender.
"If he falls I am personally blaming you."
Scott opened his mouth in protest just as Clint removed his mouth from the nozzle. He whooped and the crowd cheered again. But as he tried to dismount, he started to fall out of his handstand. Scott panicked and moved from where he was spotting him as Clint fell feet first into Nat's kitchen wall, busting a hole in the plaster.
Nat stared in annoyed disbelief at yet another hole in her wall, as Scott made himself scarce (which was definitely a good call, as he would've been the first one to get smacked.)
"Are you okay?" she signed at Clint, to which he nodded, only slightly dazed. She then smacked him across the forehead. "You're a fucking moron."
Clint chuckled and started to remove his feet from the wall as Nat moved out of the kitchen, Wanda (who Nat had totally forgotten) at her heels.
"This was a mistake." Nat muttered to Wanda.
"Natasha, don't let this ruin your night! This isn't the first time someone has busted a hole in your wall." Nat glared at her. "At least this time it wasn't a fistfight?" Nat glared even harder.
"Wanda, everyone knows how much I hate having people here. They won't be entirely surprised when I kick them all out."
"It's only a little past 11! Alright, just wait until midnight, okay? And then you can drag everyone out and drink alone like a loser." Wanda meant to push Nat's shoulder in a teasing way, but missed entirely, so her hand just fell through the air.
So it was official, all her best friends were way more inebriated than her.
"I've got to find Bucky."
Nat started scanning the crowd for Bucky yet again just as she hears Wanda gag. Before she could even fully turn around and react to what was happening, Wanda was throwing up, all over her shoes.
"Oh Jesus." Nat hid her face in her hands, while Wanda looked up, absolutely horrified.
"Oh my god. Oh my god, Natasha I'm so sorry. It's Stark's-oh my god." Wanda went green in the face all over again before making a beeline for the bathroom, leaving Nat with her amaretto soaked shoes.
Nat went storming into the kitchen to find Tony, just to find him and Rhodey hunched over his sink, both in a cold sweat.
"What the hell was in your booze? Wanda just puked all over my shoes." Nat shook her slimy shoes in Tony's face, while Rhodey just laughed.
"Ha, that rhymed." He and Tony giggled. Nat shook Tony by the arm to bring him back to reality.
"Uhh, it's a little stronger than ole' Pop originally accounted for. I probably should've mentioned that it was, uhhh, discontinued in the states." At that, he and Rhodey started giggling again.
"Why are all my friends fucking idiots?" She turned on her -now bare- heel and stormed out of the room. She stomped into her living room and stood on her coffee table, spilling her abandoned glass of amaretto in the process.
"That's it. Everyone get the fuck out of my house." The crowd murmured, before people started to trickle out, saying the awkward "goodbye" or "happy birthday" as they passed her.
"Oh, have a party, Natasha. It's your 21st, better make it fun, Natasha." She grabbed a full bottle of wine off the counter and popped the cork out, taking a swig as she made her way onto the balcony. She overlooked her little back corner of Manhattan, taking in the sounds of her street. Sam was still fast asleep out here (she would kick his ass tomorrow for talking her into this.)
Ready to put the night behind her, she stumbled over bottles and made her way to her bedroom, swinging the door open, only to find 2 half naked men on her bed. And she finally spotted him.
"Bucky?"
Bucky pulled away from the man who's face he had been eating in utter shock. The man, who turned out to be Steve, (sorry Sharon, you were right) flushed completely red before looking between the two of them and shooting up off the bed.
"I-I should go," Steve said as he shot out of the room. As he ran past Nat towards the door, he turned around like he wanted to say something. Nat just smirked at him.
"Happy Birthday," he finally managed.
"Thanks Steve," she said, biting her lip to hold in a laugh, as he shut the door behind him.
"Natasha," Bucky started, now wearing his shirt.
"Well, I'm so glad someone was having a good time at this godforsaken party." Natasha made her way over to the couch and slumped into it, taking another swig from her bottle of wine. Bucky slowly came around the side of the couch to sit beside her.
"Well, I mean, I probably would've had a better time if you didn't come in just then." Nat hit him in the shoulder, and he laughed.
"If it takes me having a party for you to get laid, you're never having sex again."
"So I figure your little shindig didn't go as planned?" He grabbed the bottle of wine out of her hand and took a swig of it.
"Let's see. Sam passed out an hour into the party that he forced me to have, Clint busted a hole in my wall again, Tony poisoned half of my friends, and I consoled a drunk girl who was crying over her ex boyfriend who you were fucking in MY ROOM the whole time." She hit him in the arm again and snatched the bottle of wine back.
"To be fair, he came onto me. And he's hot. You can't hold me accountable for that." Bucky drunkenly grinned while Nat threw her head back and laughed. The night had been messy, but her birthday was wrapping up the best way she could've imagined; Her best friend, a bottle of wine, and the summer breeze rolling off the balcony.
"Maybe this night wasn't a bust." Nat smirked at Bucky as she rested her head into his shoulder.
"So when's the next one?"
"Very funny."