Cello
When Steve gets home he finds Natasha curled up in her chair with a book he knows she’s not reading because Natasha would probably rather die than read a cook book and Tony at her feet. He’s kneeling on his pillow looking much like a scolded dog with a gag in his mouth and when he hears Steve enter the room he turns and gives him the saddest puppy eyes Steve has ever seen. He walks over immediately to free Tony from the gag but Natasha’s foot reaching out to him and pressing against his stomach holds him back.
“Absolutely not,” she tells him, not looking up from her book.
“He’s sad,” Steve says in his defense. Natasha is far more harsh with her subs than he is with his- humiliation isn’t much what he’s into but Natasha and Tony both have a minor thing for it though Tony tends to be sensitive to what kind of humiliation he likes. Natasha tends to be good at sussing it out anyways and when she isn’t she’s good at apologies. Better than Steve, apologizing isn’t his strong suit and neither is not spoiling his subs. It makes for an interesting dynamic with Natasha that most people are confused by, including Sam, Bucky, and Rhodey and its not like they have a normal relationship agreement either.
“He’s not sad, he likes it,” she tells him.
Tony blinks up at him a few times, long lashes and large brown eyes looking just devastated. “He does not, he looks like a wounded chocolate lab,” Steve says, accidentally slipping his preferred animal counterpart for Tony out. Most people compared him to a deer, his mom used to call him Bambi in Italian, but Steve has always preferred a chocolate lab. Its not like deers look guilty when they’ve gotten into something they shouldn’t have and Tony always rats himself out immediately. Sometimes in hilarious ways like ‘I didn’t just eat an entire large pizza to myself, Natasha did it’ when they both know Natasha doesn’t even like pizza. She claims Clint ruined it for her when he put mayo and peas on it once.
Natasha peers over her book, shrewd green eyes giving him a look. “That’s because the only thing he likes more than being gagged is playing you like a goddamn fiddle and lately you’re the whole damn orchestra.”
That is absolutely not true. Tony presses his face to Steve’s leg and he runs his fingers through Tony’s soft hair. “How come you gagged him anyways?” he asks, assuming perhaps not correctly that its some kind of punishment. They have a weird system that he mostly stays out of due to his not knowing what the hell is going on most of the time. But they read each other well and Steve knows what their dynamic looks like by now. He’d been the new element and its not an arrangement he’d expected to like, but its actually a lot more fulfilling than most of his past relationships. With a past as colorful as his finding enough stimulation in normal life can be difficult and Tony and Natasha certainly provide color.
“He wouldn’t shut up,” Natasha says and Steve frowns.
“That’s not a very good reason,” he tells her. Against his leg Tony nods in agreement. “Tony agrees,” he adds.
Natasha glares at him over her book, “hush, you. Its bad enough I had to listen to a four hour rant about Justin fucking Hammer. I just don’t understand how you can hate a man so much when all he did was steal your damn gummy bears when you were six,” she says.
“I don’t think she’s ever had gummy bears,” Steve murmurs at Tony even though he finds no real logic in Tony’s reason for hating Hammer at all. Tony makes a small noise of agreement and nods again.
“Oh Jesus Steve, you couldn’t be played better if you were an actual tuba,” Natasha tells him. Tony lets out a small snort of laughter at this.
Steve, however, is offended. “I wouldn’t be a tuba. I wouldn’t even be a brass instrument, I’d be a cello,” he says.
Natasha squints, “why the fuck do you even know that?” she asks. “What would I be?” she asks a moment later, curious.
“You’d be a saxophone and Tony would be an electric guitar. Bucky would be a triangle and Sam is an oboe. I don’t have Rhodey figured out yet,” he says. Tony shakes a little at his feet from his laughter, making small noises of amusement.
“Barnes would be a triangle,” Natasha mumbles, “because he’s fucking useless. And Rhodey would obviously be the conductor.”
“Actually I think that’s fury but I’ll figure Rhodey out eventually,” Steve says.
“Fine, then. But right now the damn conductor is Tony and you’re one easy to play cello,” Natasha tells him, getting back to their original point.
Tony blinks up at him slowly, nose twitching kind of like a rabbit. “Natasha, talking isn’t a crime, you shouldn’t punish him for it. You know how talkative he is.” Some people, including Steve when they first met, assumed he talked to hear his own voice. Boy did he feel like an asshole when he found out that Tony did a lot of talking because silence reminded him of the clam before or after Howard going on a rampage. Now he has a lot more patience for Tony’s constant chatter. Plus he learns fun things like jellyfish don’t have brains, which Sam had immediately used against Bucky, telling him he must be a jellyfish then.
“It should be when its a four hour rant about a man who only stole some gummy bears as a child,” Natasha mumbles. “He’ll learn his lesson.” Steve pets Tony’s head, silently telling him he’ll get him out of that gag. “Watch him for a minute, I need to go pee,” Natasha tells him, gracefully pulling herself out of the chair and walking away. Steve waits until she’s out of sight before he reaches around the back of Tony’s head and undoes the buckle holding the gag in place.
He doesn’t anticipate Natasha sticking her head back around the corner as he pulls it from Tony’s mouth though. “I left you for two fucking seconds! You have no self control- Tony walks all over you and you let him, He needs guidance, you know,” Natasha tells him. She disappears back around the corner and Steve frowns. Guess she did actually have to pee.
“I don’t think you walk all over anyone,” Steve tells Tony, pressing a kiss to the top of his head and running his fingers through his hair again. Tony grins, looking pleased with himself.